The United States said Tuesday that a landmark nuclear accord with India could be salvaged even after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh admitted having trouble pushing the controversial agreement within his coalition government.
"It's not dead," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said after Singh explained to President George W. Bush that "certain difficulties" had arisen with respect to the operationalization of the India-US civilian nuclear co-operation agreement.
Singh, who had been pushing for the conclusion of the deal as his key foreign policy achievement, conveyed the message to Bush during a phone conversation late Monday.
It was a new sign that Singh's key Congress party may have caved in to pressure from communist and other left-wing parties that prop up the government in parliament.
Fratto said India needed to be given time to digest the deal, first agreed more than two years ago between Bush and Singh as a key component of a strategic partnership between the world's two giant democracies. "India is a thriving democracy and they have work to do and they may need some additional time on their end to get their part of this deal done," he said.
"The President is willing and is very understanding that the Indians may need more time for this. But no, it's not - it's not dead," he said. The United States hopes India "will decide to move forward with this agreement and we like to see it completed in 2008," said Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman.
"The United States has worked very hard and has met its commitments under the agreement and we are going to continue to work hard to fulfill it," Casey said. Opponents of the deal in the ruling Indian coalition are worried that traditionally non-aligned India is getting too close to Washington, and that the government may be compromising the future development of the country's nuclear weapons program.
Left-wing parties have been threatening to withdraw their support for the government in parliament over the deal, a move that would force early elections. "Certainly, we understand that there are some internal discussions on this (in India). We don't want to interfere in those and so we will let the Indians speak to any issued related to that," Casey said.
"We are building a significant strategic partnership and really have entered a very different and very positive phase in the history of US-India relations. So, we are going to continue to build on that," he explained. Daryl Kimball, executive director of the US Arms Control Association, said even though the deal was not dead, "it is certainly in the hospital and the prospects that it can be revived are looking dimmer and dimmer."
Under the agreement, the United States would provide India with nuclear fuel and technology even though the Asian nuclear-armed giant has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.