New Delhi, October 2
India is confident that all its concerns, particularly about fuel supplies, would be addressed satisfactorily when President George W. Bush signs the 123 agreement legislation approved by the US Senate today.
While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declined to comment on the US Senate’s approval of the 123 agreement, his close confidant and National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan hailed the passage of the pact, saying the world at large has now recognised India as a nuclear power. “The world needs India as India needs the world. It’s something which we have understood but the world at large has now recognised…we are now a nuclear power.”
“I will comment only when it (deal) becomes a law,’’ the Prime Minister said at a function at his residence as many of those in the gathering congratulated him in the wake of the Senate’s approval of the pact.
Singh, who returned from his ten-day foreign tour, had expected that the deal would be wrapped up during his stay in New York. However, that did not happen in view of the fact that the US Congress was preoccupied with an unprecedented economic crisis in the country. But President Bush had assured Singh at their meeting on September 25 in Washington that his administration would get the deal approved as quickly as possible to the satisfaction of India.
Singh, who staked his government over the deal, and Bush have both projected the nuclear deal as their biggest achievement on the foreign policy front. They are confident that it would transform the relationship between the world’s largest democracy and the world’s oldest democracy.
Indications are that the deal would be signed when US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice visits New Delhi on Saturday.
Earlier, she was supposed to arrive tomorrow but her visit has been delayed by a day since external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee too is returning from his visit to New York tomorrow.
