Wednesday, September 6 2006 14:33 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should be expected to secure approval for minor changes made by US Congress to the nuclear deal with India, says the Washington Times as it overall clearly benefits both countries.

Manmohan Singh had said recently that his country would accept no changes to the original agreement, it noted in an editorial Tuesday, but suggested US Senate discussion of the bill should be minimally influenced by what it called 'Singh's bluster.'

At the same time, it said, "Certain political realities will prevail: Demanding India sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, for instance, is a non-starter so long as neighbouring Pakistan remains uncommitted to it."

"Forging a stronger relationship with India is an unambiguously advantageous and astute aspect of Bush administration foreign policy," it said.

But solidifying the relationship now depends on securing congressional approval for the civil nuclear deal, what President Bush called a 'necessary' and 'historic' agreement that has become the centrepiece of his Indian diplomacy.

The House approved the deal 359-68 at the end of July. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 16-3 in favour of the accord in June, and it's important that the bill be taken up in the Senate, where, by most accounts, it has enough support to pass, the Times said.

The agreement would boost India's imports, by some estimates in excess of $50 billion, and much of that business would go to US firms. US exports to India doubled between 2002 and 2005 (to $8 billion), and US companies are hoping that India's economy and its imports will continue to grow.

To sustain that growth, India needs to be able to meet its increasing energy needs, and the United States should prefer that India rely on nuclear power as a clean alternative to coal power plants, it said.

Criticism of the deal is centred on the assertion that the accord rewards India, which is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty or the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, at the same time that the United States is trying to punish such nuclear rogue states as Iran and North Korea.

Unlike those two countries, however, India has an exemplary non-proliferation record. The agreement brings India more into the nuclear mainstream, where it belongs.

The deal will bring India's civil nuclear programme under international safeguards, which is why the agreement won the endorsement of director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammed ElBaradei, the US daily noted.

All future reactors, along with two-thirds of India's current reactors, will be brought into compliance with international standards.

In a practical sense, bringing some Indian nuclear reactors under international safeguards is preferable to having no Indian nuclear reactors in compliance with those safeguards. the Times concluded.