New Delhi: India on Friday expressed confidence that its nuclear deal with the US would win US Congress approval following the Bush administration's pledge to support a bi-partisan legislation on the pact.
"Although nothing can be predicted, we are confident that this deal will win US Congress approval. If we were not confident, there would have been no deal in the first place," Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said on the margins of a valedictory ceremony in honour of the 2004 IFS batch in New Delhi.
His comments came in the wake of the Bush administration asserting its opposition to ‘deal-breaker’ amendments by US Congress that could force it to "go back and renegotiate" the pact.
The House International Relations Committee is scheduled for a mark-up – or fine-tuning the text – on June 27 of the bi-partisan legislation authored by its chairman Henry Hyde and ranking member Tom Lantos on the Indo-US civil nuclear deal.
Next day, Senate Foreign Relations Committee will mark-up a bill authored by its chairman Richard Lugar and Ranking Democrat Jospeh Biden.
Even as the US Congress prepares to vote on legislation for the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, the White House has said President George W Bush considered it a ‘top priority’ and wants the Senate and House of Representatives to ‘act affirmatively’ on it.
"We have pledged to the Congress today that we would favour, support, a majority vote, a straight up and down vote in the Congress at the end of the process on that US-India bilateral agreement," Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns has said.
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