Friday, January 6 2006 10:28 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said the prospect of India having civilian nuclear energy could be an 'enormously important step' forward as it is welcomed not only by the US but also by members in the Nuclear Suppliers Group and IAEA chief Mohammad ElBaradei.

"In fact, ElBaradei himself has said publicly he thinks it is a good thing we move in this direction with India. So this could be an enormously important step forward," Rice said at an interactive session at the US State Department Correspondents Meeting yesterday.

Though she refused to divulge details of the ongoing negotiations with the Indian government, Rice stressed that Washington had made clear the need for a "separation plan."

"We've been very clear that while we want India very much to have access to civil nuclear technology, we also want to do this in a way that strengthens non-proliferation. And so, that's why the arrangement is designed as it should...the negotiations are ongoing," she said in response to a question.

"The prospect that you could have civil nuclear energy in India is one that is welcomed not just by the US but by the other countries of the Nuclear Suppliers Group," she said.

"And I just want to underscore, a lot of non-proliferation people, including the head of the IAEA himself, thinks it's a very good idea that we work in this direction. But the specifics of how we get there are still being worked," Rice added.

According to Rice, the US couldn't have it both ways - telling carbon-dependent countries like India not to engage in energy relations with a nation like Iran and at the same time withholding from New Delhi access to civilian nuclear energy.

"We can't say to the Indians on the one hand, you can't - we'd rather you weren't engaged in energy relations with, for instance, Iran, but by the way, civil nuclear is closed off to you," she remarked.

"We have to recognise that India is a big and important and growing economy. It will have to access civil nuclear energy if it's not to be totally dependent on carbon and if it is not to be dependent on carbon relationships with countries that we've had concerns about," Rice said.

Rejecting the notion that the US was adopting double standards on the nuclear issue, that democracies like India and Israel could have it and others like Iran or North Korea could not, Rice said the US does not worry about certain countries because they have demonstrated no desire for nuclear weapons while there are others who cheat on their obligations. "One of the problems that the Non Proliferation Treaty has is it assumed all conditions were going to be identical and you could therefore make blanket statements. And I think what we've learned is that conditions are different in different places," she said.

"We worry not at all about civil nuclear power in those countries because they have demonstrated no desire toward nuclear weapons...the worst cases are people who are under IAEA safeguards, under NPT obligations, and then they cheat on those obligations.

"And we have a couple of cases of those we're working right now - North Korea and Iran," she added.

According to Rice, the problem with Iran is that it has demonstrated it is not trustworthy under its NPT obligations. "That's the analysis that I would make...And so when it cites its Non-Proliferation Treaty rights, you have to say, 'Well, what about your obligations?'" she said.

"So, I would not make a blanket statement about these states can have nuclear weapons and those cannot, the issue that we really face is how to make the NPT effective, how to close its loopholes and how to react when states have violated their obligations," she added.

The Secretary of State did not comment on the ongoing controversy of the CIRUS reactor.