Wednesday, December 21 2005 20:21 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: Coinciding with Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran's visit here for talks on the Indo-US civilian nuclear cooperation, two lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan resolution in the House of Representatives opposing the deal and claiming that it posed "grave security implications" for South Asia and the entire world.

"Current law prohibits the sale of nuclear technology to any country such as India which refuses to sign the Non Proliferation Treaty, refuses to allow full safeguards under the treaty and which develops nuclear weapons and detonates nuclear tests in defiance of the treaty," Democrat Ed Markey, who has co-sponsored the resolution along with his Republican colleague Fred Upton, said in a statement.

The Bush Administration's move to launch nuclear Cooperation with India has "grave security implications for South Asia and the entire world," he claimed.

"Supplying nuclear fuel to countries that are not party to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) derails the delicate balance that has been established between nuclear nations and limits our capacity to insist that other nations continue to follow this important non-proliferation policy," Markey said.

"We cannot break the nuclear rules established in the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and demand that everyone else play by them."

The resolution was introduced yesterday ahead of Saran's talks with his American counterpart Nicholas Burns here during which the two sides are expected to spell out the steps taken by them on implementation of the civilian nuclear deal.