Bush Urges India Cooperate on Nuclear Plans

WASHINGTON - President Bush pressed India Wednesday to separate its civilian and military nuclear programs so a controversial deal giving New Delhi access to U.S. and other foreign nuclear technology could go forward.

In a speech to the Asia Society previewing his trip next week to India and Pakistan, Bush also said Pakistan and other countries in the area must strike a balance between respecting Muslims' rights to protest publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad and not letting the protests turn violent.

"We understand that striking the right balance is difficult, but we must not allow mobs to dictate the future of South Asia," Bush said.

Reflecting rapidly improving ties, the United States and India last July agreed in principle to give New Delhi access to long-denied U.S. civilian nuclear technology, including fuel and reactors, and also open the door to other foreign suppliers.

The two governments remain at odds over a central part of that deal, a plan to separate India's nuclear facilities in which civilian sites would be subject to international inspections while military sites remain off-limits.

The chief U.S. negotiator on the deal, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, is in India this week for more talks, and a senior U.S. official said the goal was to close a deal before Bush leaves for New Delhi next Tuesday.

Burns, in an e-mail message to Reuters, said much progress has been made but more work remains.

"The final stage in negotiations such as this is often the most challenging and I suspect that will be the case this week. We are trying to narrow our final differences. This is an important agreement," Burns said.

The plan aims to bring India closer to international non-proliferation norms and guard against diversion of imported nuclear technology from energy uses to nuclear weapons.

Failure to resolve key practical differences would mar Bush's trip, officials and experts say.

Strong Opposition

Bush said India should bring its civilian nuclear program under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

"I'll continue to encourage India to produce a credible, transparent and defensible plan to separate its civilian and military nuclear programs," he said.

The Americans insist India must put more facilities under international supervision than New Delhi has proposed. India's powerful nuclear establishment has complained this would shackle its scientists and leave India dependent on imported uranium.

The civilian nuclear-energy accord faces strong opposition in both India and the United States. "Implementing this agreement will take time and it will take patience from both our countries," Bush said.

Democratic Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts faulted Bush's push for the nuclear deal.

"Supplying nuclear fuel to countries that are not party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty derails the delicate balance that has been established between nuclear nations and destroys our credibility when insisting that other nations continue to follow this important non-proliferation policy," Markey, co-chair of the Congress' bipartisan task force on non-proliferation, said in a news release.

India's ambassador to Washington, Ronen Sen, on Tuesday denied the deal would help New Delhi make more atomic weapons.

Bush, asked if he had Pakistan in mind for a similar deal, told Pakistani journalists that "we are starting with India" because New Delhi needs to diversify away from fossil fuels. He neither embraced nor ruled out Pakistan's eventual inclusion.

Bush also urged both India and Pakistan to work toward an agreement "acceptable to all sides" on the disputed region of Kashmir, where an Islamic insurgency has killed tens of thousands of people since 1989.