Thursday, March 23 2006 10:01 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: The United States has said that it has not given up the fissile materials cutoff treaty and would 'push the idea forward' with India on such an accord in the near future.

"The United States has said for a very long time that we are interested in the fissile material cut-off treaty. In fact, if you go back to the July 18th joint statement between Prime Minister (Manmohan) Singh and President (George W) Bush here at the White House in Washington, both governments said that we would work together to support a fissile material cut-off treaty," Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Nicholas Burns, said yesterday.

"I think you'll see us in the near future push this idea forward," he told reporters at The Washington Foregin Press Centre.

"As you know, the United States and many of the other nuclear powers do have a moratorium on fissile material production, and we encourage other countries to adopt the same practice. A treaty would be helpful, and so we've said that many times. The president said it in July, and I think you'll see us support that in the future," he added.

Burns said there was no contradiction in the administration stand of going to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to loosen requirements for India and asking the same group to toughen the requirements for Iran.

"It's not a contradiction to say to the NSG or the U.S. Congress: Here's our friend India, a democratic country that plays by the rules, that has not diverted its nuclear technology, that wants to invite the IAEA to come in and inspect its nuclear facilities on a permanent basis so that the whole world will know what's going on inside the Indian nuclear civil nuclear establishment."

"And then here's another country, Iran, that lied to the IAEA for 18-1/2 years about its secret nuclear research; that has just said to the IAEA we don't want the additional protocol; that has also said on January 4th that it's proceeding to enrichment research and development, which the Russian, Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, Sri Lankan, American, Japanese, Australian and European governments have all said is a bridge too far; they crossed a line", he added.

"There is a dramatic difference between India and Iran and all the world understands it. And so when Ambassador(Richard) Boucher and Ambassador (Stephen) Rademaker walk into the hall and brief the NSG, I think they're going to get a good reception," Burns remarked.

"I don't think all the countries (in the NSG) are ready to make a decision yet. They're going to want to see the details of this agreement. We'll give them the details. They're going to want to see what the U.S. Congress does. And that's logical. And so this takes time. But we're confident that in the end, there's going to be a there will be a positive result", he said.