Thursday, August 3 2006 11:33 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: India's objections to certain sections in the Senate bill on the Indo-US nuclear deal came up for discussion at the nomination hearing of John Rood, the US Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Non-Proliferation.

The Bush administration told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee it prefers prohibitions on export of enrichment, reprocessing and heavy water production technology as well as an end-use monitoring system to track nuclear technology exports to India to stay in the realm of policy as opposed to a matter of law.

But Senate Panel chairman Richard Lugar said some Indian government officials argued that this prohibition in the Senate bill moves the goalpost set by the original July 2005 agreement.

"Did New Delhi not understand United States policy, which you've enunciated again this morning? If they did understand the policy, please give us your opinion on why they opposed placing the prohibition into law but can accept the existence of the policy," the Indiana Republican asked Rood.

In his reply, Rood said that this was an important feature of discussions that led up to the July 18, 2005 joint statement which included language under which the Indian government agreed to work with us to limit the spread of enrichment and reprocessing technologies internationally.

"We look forward to civil nuclear cooperation with India, but we've told the Indian government we don't envision that cooperation involving enrichment and reprocessing technologies or the technology for the production of heavy water" Rood said.