Plans for Iranian port queried
‘India has addressed nuclear concerns’
WASHINGTON, May 25, (Agencies): US senators questioned on Tuesday whether India’s development of a port in southern Iran for trade access risked violating international sanctions, and a State Department official assured them the administration would closely examine the project.
“We have been very clear with the Indians (about) continuing restrictions on activities with respect to Iran,” Nisha Desai Biswal, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, said on Tuesday.
“We have to examine the details of the Chabahar announcement to see where it falls in that place,” she testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday pledged up to $500 million to develop the Iranian port of Chabahar, to try to give his country trade access to Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia. The route is currently all but blocked by Pakistan, long at odds politically with India.
The United States and Europe lifted sanctions in January under a deal with Iran to limit its nuclear program but some restrictions to trade remain, tied to issues such as human rights and terrorism.
Biswal said she believed India’s relationship with Iran was primarily focused on economic and energy issues, and said the administration recognized India’s need for a trade route.
“From the Indian perspective, Iran represents for India a gateway into Afghanistan and Central Asia,” she said. “It needs access that it doesn’t have.”
Biswal said she had not seen any sign of Indian engagement with Iran in areas, such as military cooperation, that might be of concern to the United
India vows swift justice:
India has promised swift punishment after a student from Congo was fatally attacked in New Delhi.
Wednesday’s comment by the Foreign Ministry comes after several African missions demanded the government take steps States.
Modi is due to visit the United States next month and will address a joint meeting of Congress, a rare honor.
Senator Ben Cardin, the committee’s top Democrat, asked if Biswal expected formal security cooperation agreements to be signed during that visit.
She noted that India and the United States have already strengthened their security cooperation in several areas. “We’re looking at what additional areas we can engage in to deepen that cooperation,” Biswal said.
Washington sees its relationship with India as critical, partly to counterbalance China’s rising power. President Barack Obama has called it “one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century.”
A US State Department official assured lawmakers on Tuesday that India has addressed concerns over liability that had for years kept US corporations from signing nuclear power contracts in the country.
“We believe that the steps that India has taken have addressed by and large the key concerns that have been in place,” Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
She also said the United States supported India joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a 48-member group of nuclear trading nations.
India wants to increase its nuclear energy capacity dramatically as part of a broader push to move away from fossil fuels, cut greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the dangerous effects of climate change.
Policemen stand guard near a small C90 aircraft, used as an air ambulance, that crash landed in the outskirts of New Delhi, India on May 24. The air ambulance on its way to New Delhi from Patna made an emergency landing in an agricultural
field, injuring a few but all seven people on board were safe. (AP)
India was shut out of the nuclear trade for decades because of its weapons program. A 2008 agreement with the United States gave it access to foreign suppliers without giving up arms primarily meant as a deterrent against nuclear-armed China.
But hopes that US nuclear reactor manufacturers would get billions of dollars of new business evaporated after India adopted a law in 2010 giving the state-run Nuclear Power Corp of India Ltd (NPCIL) the right to seek damages from suppliers in the event of an accident.
Biswal declined to say that all US companies would now be comfortable doing business in India. “Those are going to be individual determinations that companies are going to have to make,” she said.
Also: WASHINGTON:
US lawmakers say they are encouraged by growing defense cooperation with India but remain concerned about religious intolerance and slavery in the South Asian nation ahead of a visit by its prime minister.
Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee examined ties between the world’s two largest democracies Tuesday in advance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to Congress next month.
Committee chairman Sen. Bob Corker said it was essential that the US and India stand together to uphold democratic values and norms in the Indo-Pacific region as China seeks to gain greater influence.
But he voiced concern that about half of the estimated 27 million people in slavery in the world reside in India.
Other lawmakers complained about restrictions on market access to India.