The United States administration has expressed confidence that when the full process of the nuclear deal is out of the way in the Congress, the legislation will be something that everybody can support as being in the interests of the US and India.
"We are very pleased and we welcome the strong bipartisan support that has been expressed so far for the civil nuclear cooperation initiative," Acting State Department Spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters.
The House International Relations Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved a bill seeking to make exemptions in American energy laws to enable civilian nuclear cooperation
"The legislation will now be considered by the full House and the full Senate. We will continue to work with Congress, as we have in the past, to address remaining issues in the legislation, " Ereli said.
He said the bill has to go through some more work but that the administration is confident that it will be a co-operative and a good process and it will end up with something that everybody can support and that serves the interests if the United States and our strong partner India" Eerily said.
Asked if there are some collateral legislation or some amendments that are necessary, Eerily said the 'package that comes out of Congress will be on the lines of the vision of the President George W Bush and Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh'.
He added: " I don't think so. I think that there's one legislative package and this is it. It's not finalized. Committees have approved it. It has to be approved by the full House and Senate.
"There might be -- there will be some, probably, changes based on consultations with those two chambers. There are a couple of remaining issues to be addressed. Discussions are ongoing. I'm not in a position to really get into any detail," Eerily said.
"There are a few remaining issues to be worked out and we think we'll be able to do that without reopening or -- reopening the whole process or changing the path that has been outlined so far," he added.
Elaborating on what Eerily said, a senior administration official told PTI that the accent is on the 'positive' and that is how the spokesman's comments have to be looked at.
The official maintained that since the legislative process is not fully out of the way the administration will ensure that the final outcome will be along the framework charted by the July 2005 and the March 2006 statements issued by the President and the Indian Prime Minister.
Sources said the Bush Administration is quite aware of the apprehensions expressed in certain quarters especially in India on aspects of the package that have cleared the relevant Committees in the House and the Senate and in a solid fashion.
Washington, it is pointed out, is quite aware of the apprehensions expressed in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee mark up of the "United States India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation" Act particularly as it pertained to Section 106 on Prohibition of Certain Exports and Re-Exports and Section 107 as it pertained to End Use Monitoring Programmed.
The civilian nuclear deal as it has come out of the Committees in the House and the Senate will go to the Conference Committee as the Senate version is not only different in language but more legalistic and highly technical.
The administration, sources say, hopes to use the conference stage to bring it more in line with what has been agreed upon in the frameworks of July 2005 and March 2006.
