'US committed to nuke deal; hopes to sign EUMA soon'

The Obama Administration today asserted that it is committed to implement the civilian nuclear deal with India, so does New Delhi, and there should be no apprehension in this regard.     

"I do not think there should be any apprehensions about the future of the civil nuclear agreement," Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Robert Blake told reporters.     

"The (US) Secretary and the President are fully committed to that agreement. I think the Indians are also fully committed," Blake added in response to a question which referred him to the recent G-8 declaration related to restriction on transfer of nuclear technology to non-NPT States.     

"They (India) are going to be moving forward to file a declaration of safeguarded facilities with the IAEA, which is sort of the next step in that process, and then we're going to start reprocessing talks, probably either later this month or in August," he shared.     

"So all of that is very much on track. As I say, we'll also be starting some bilateral cooperation with — hopefully with the announcement of these two nuclear sites. So I would discourage any talk that somehow the agreement is off track," he asserted.

Meanwhile Blake said the US has expressed hope that it would be able to sign the end-use monitoring agreement (EUMA) with New Delhi and get commitment for two nuclear park sites for its companies during the visit of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to India, beginning July 17.     

"We hope to be able to sign that (end-use monitoring agreement), and obviously, that will take place on Monday of next week."

"On the question of the two nuclear sites, we hope that we will be in a position to be able to announce publicly those two sites where US companies can have exclusive right to locate reactors and sell reactors to the Indians," Blake shared in response to a question during the press briefing.     

News reports from New Delhi have added that the Indian government has identified the two sites in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.     

"We think that that's a major opportunity for American companies. It opens up as much as $10 billion worth of new exports to India. So again, we hope to be in a position for both sides to announce it," Blake said.     

"The agreement would be with her counterpart, Foreign Minister S M Krishna. The end use monitoring is the only one that is on the table for the moment," he clarified.