Response by the MEA Official Spokesperson in relation to the news item in Washington Post today

New Delhi
September 3, 2008

Response by the MEA Official Spokesperson in relation to the news item in Washington Post today, Wednesday, September 03, 2008 regarding the India-US agreement on civil nuclear cooperation:

i) Government's attention has been drawn to this news report;

ii) We do not, as a matter of policy, comment on internal correspondence between different branches of another government;

iii) We will be guided solely by the terms of the bilateral agreement between India and the United States, the India Specific Safeguards Agreement and the clean waiver from the NSG, which we hope will be forthcoming in the meeting of the NSG on September 4-5, 2008;

iv) Insofar as the issue of testing is concerned, our position is well known. We have a unilateral moratorium on testing. This is reflected in the India-US Joint Statement of July 18, 2005.