U.S. lawmakers stress on August timeline for N-deal

New Delhi, Jul 5 (PTI) - As government continues efforts
to push the nuclear deal, a delegation of influential U.S.
lawmakers Thursday said the agreement should come back to the
Congress for final vote by August failing which it will not be
completed during the tenure of Bush Administration.

After meeting Prime Minister's Special Envoy on Nuclear
Deal Shyam Saran and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, the
U.S. Congressional delegation leader Gary Ackerman made it
clear that India will have to speed up the process as the
calender of the American Congress is "running quickly" and
time to get the deal through is "getting shorter".

"The Congress is an ongoing entity. We have a calender..
The calender is running quickly," he told reporters after
meeting Saran and Menon during which he and other five members
of the delegation were briefed about New Delhi's efforts to
implement the deal at the earliest.

He said the Congress will break for session in September
and it will meet again after the U.S. Presidential poll
process, while making it clear that the deal would have to be
taken up during the next administration if India fails to firm
up a Safeguards Agreement with International Atomic Energy
Agency (I.A.E.A.) and get waiver from 45-nation Nuclear
Suppliers Group (N.S.G.) by August.

"We had been hopeful that the processes will move
quickly... (but) the processes have moved slower than we had
hoped because of obvious reasons," said Ackerman, who heads
the House Foreign Relations Sub-Committee on South Asia.

He noted that the "visionary" deal was going through
political processes here but refused to comment on it, saying
he had no right to "infringe on the sovereign" process.

As per the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, India has to firm
up Safeguards Agreement with I.A.E.A. and get a waiver from
N.S.G. before the agreement is put to 'up and down vote' in
the U.S. Congress, necessary for implementation of the
agreement.

India has finalised the safeguards agreement with
I.A.E.A. but is unable to sign it because of stiff opposition
from Left parties, which are extending crucial outside
support.

The government is involved in efforts to end the
logjam and move ahead by signing the agreement with I.A.E.A.

Asked whether he felt the deal could be implemented
during Bush administration's tenure, Ackerman said it would
depend on whether the Indian government has the deal ready in
time.

"If they do it on time, we will be prepared," he said.

"I do not know if India will be ready by September"
and if New Delhi is not ready, the matter cannot be put on the
agenda of the Congress during the remaining calender, he said.

Asked whether it was late now, he quipped "it is never
late till it is late".

"India has the first bite of the apple. India has the
first right to deny...," he said.

Ackerman, who has been a pro-India Congressman, noted
that the deal has bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress and
even the Left there wants the agreement to "happen".

He, however, emphasised that the fate of the nuclear
deal will have no impact on the bilateral relations and the
U.S. would continue to be friends with India.

The delegation is also expected to meet Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and
some political leaders during their two-day stay here ending
tomorrow. PTI