Friday, May 12 2006 17:20 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: Asserting that India has an 'excellent' track record in non-proliferation, Democratic Congressman Gary Ackerman today (May 12, 2006) slammed critics of the Indo-US nuclear deal for thinking that New Delhi would somehow 'leak' the technology to rogue nations.

Ackerman said President George W Bush has made the 'right strategic choice' in moving ahead with relations with India and asked critics not to hold India accountable for making the decision not to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and developing a nuclear programme outside of NPT obligations and limitations.

"If any nation should be held accountable by the United States or the international community for violations of non-proliferation norms, it should be those nations who agreed to abide by those norms in the first place and then chose to violate them by pursuing nuclear weapons anyway and selling the related technologies," he said.

"The Administration is clueless as to how to deal with them. Thirty years of ostracizing and sanctioning India has not put the nuclear genie back in the bottle and it has not gotten India to abandon its quest for nuclear power," he said.

"Clearly, its time for a different approach and the President has proposed one that I believe deserves our support," Ackerman said in his Opening Statement at the House International Relations Committee.

"The assertion that, after India receives nuclear technology from the US or others in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), somehow this technology would 'leak' to other nations, that India, in effect, would become a rogue proliferator ignores decades worth of actual experience with Indian control over nuclear technology," the New York Democrat said.

"By most clear-eyed accounts, India has an excellent record regarding proliferation of its technology to other nations and now with new and tougher export control legislation adopted by the Indian parliament, India's ability to control such exports is even better," he said.

"In addition, I cannot think of a reason why the Indians on the brink of achieving acceptance as a responsible nuclear power would risk throwing it all away by allowing such sophisticated technology to be sold to another nation," he said.

The Co Chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans debunked the notion that the civilian nuclear deal failed to restrain India's weapons programme.

"The purpose of the agreement wasn't to stop, rollback, or convince India to abandon its nuclear program. They would not have engaged with us on those terms. As I said earlier, we sanctioned, we lectured, we pleaded, but India hasmade a strategic sovereign decision on this question and I think it is incumbent on us to deal with that set of realities,"he said.

"The situation with India is not the same as with Iran, or North Korea, or Pakistan. The message to those that are truly outside the nonproliferation mainstream is that responsible behavior is rewarded with international acceptance. That's the case for India. The others need not apply," he said.