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Bush in India seeking nuclear deal
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-02 09:17
NEW DELHI, India - President Bush opened a three-day visit to India on
Wednesday to warm relations with the world's largest democracy, but says he
doesn't know if he'll be able to seal his elusive nuclear deal with New Delhi.
Bush wants to share US nuclear know-how and fuel with India to help power its
fast-growing economy, even though India won't sign the international
nonproliferation treaty.
US President George
W. Bush, left, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh share a light
moment, after Bushs arrival in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, March 1, 2006.
US President George W. Bush arrived in India on Wednesday as talks on a
landmark US-Indian nuclear pact were down to the wire and tens of
thousands of Indians rallied in New Delhi to protest his visit.
[AP] |
Despite telephone diplomacy from Air Force One as it flew to South Asia,
disagreements remain. If reached, the landmark accord would represent a major
shift in policy for the United States, which imposed temporary sanctions on
India in 1998 after it conducted nuclear tests.
"We'll continue to dialogue and work, and hopefully we can reach an
agreement," Bush said. "If not, we'll continue to work on it until we do."
In a surprise detour to Afghanistan on his way to India, Bush downplayed the
significance of getting the deal completed during his visit. The success of his
trip, however, will be judged on whether the two sides can agree on how to split
India's nuclear weapons work from its peaceful nuclear program, and place the
later under international inspection.
"The one thing that is absolutely necessary is that any agreement would
assure that once India has decided to put a reactor under safeguard that it
remain permanently under safeguard," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told
reporters on the plane.
Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran has stressed the need for clarity,
saying, "We need to make sure there are no ambiguities which may create
difficulties for us in the future."
Bush spoke in Kabul, standing alongside Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose
fragile government is facing a resurgence of violence from al-Qaida and
repressive Taliban militants. Bush said he thinks Osama bin Laden, the
mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, will one day be captured.
"I am confident he will be brought to justice," Bush said.
Bush and his wife, Laura Bush, arrived after sundown at an Indian air force
station in Palam, outside New Delhi. He is the fifth US president to visit
India, which is home to more than 1 billion people and has the world's
second-largest Muslim population.
Setting aside protocol, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh welcomed Bush at
the airport. The president's motorcade rolled effortlessly through streets that
earlier were clogged with noisy trucks, bicycles and other vehicles, including
green-and-yellow motorized rickshaws weaving from lane to lane.
The mood in New Delhi was much changed from 1959 when President Eisenhower
became the first US president to visit the nation. Then, an estimated 1 million
joyous Indians threw rose petals at Eisenhower as he rode in an open limousine
along a route where a sign heralded him as "Prince of Peace."
The headline Wednesday in the English-language Times of India, which depicted
Bush wearing a cowboy hat and wielding a lasso, read: "India-US Ties Set To Soar
As Eagle Lands."
But not all Indians were happy to see him.
At Wednesday's protest in central New Delhi, tens of thousands of people,
many of them Muslim, chanted "Death to Bush!" and waved placards reading, "Bully
Bush, Go Home." Muslims in India's part of Kashmir also protested the Bush
visit.
"The people of India have a categoric message for George Bush: Go home!" V.P.
Singh, a former prime minister of India, said to roars of approval from the
crowd.
The last-minute efforts to craft the nuclear pact coupled with Wednesday's
protests reflected India's mixed feelings toward Bush and the United States 錕斤拷 a
country seen both as a loyal friend and a global bully.
Some lawmakers in Washington contend that the Bush administration is making a
side deal to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Critics in India are wary that
the United States is meddling in Indian affairs, and is using India as a
counterweight to China's growing economic and political influence.
Bush's approval ratings in India, however, are better than at home where his
second-term agenda has yet to gain traction.
In recent weeks, the Bush administration has endured backlashes over
warrantless wiretapping of Americans with suspected ties to terrorists, a bumpy
rollout of the new Medicare prescription drug program, Vice President Dick
Cheney's hunting accident, growing civil strife in Iraq and a Republican revolt
over the administration's agreement to hand over management of parts of six US
ports to a Dubai-owned company based in the United Arab Emirates.
Bush's job approval currently rating hovers around 40 percent. In contrast,
recent international polling has found that people in India generally have a
positive view of the United States. A Pew Research Center poll taken in mostly
urban areas of India in May 2005 found that seven in 10 held a favorable view of
the United States.
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