Ties with India, S Asia to boost US security

US President George W. Bush (C), Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf (L), US First Lady Laura Bush (3R), and Musharraf's wife Sahaba (R), pose with children left orphaned by the Pakistan earthquake at the Presidential Palace in Islamabad yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

"By working with these leaders and the people of these three nations, we're seizing the opportunities this new century offers and helping to lay the foundations of peace and prosperity for generations to come," the president said in his weekly radio address.

He said the nuclear agreement he had reached with India will bring India's civilian nuclear programmes under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The deal signed by Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday paves the way for the lifting of three-decade-old US restrictions on sharing civilian nuclear technology.

In exchange, India agreed to place its civilian atomic reactors under global scrutiny.

The deal, however, was meet with sharp criticism in the US Congress. Democratic Representative Edward Markey, co-chairman of the Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation, said the agreement undercuts the very foundation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

"It empowers the hawks in every rogue nation to put their nuclear weapons plans on steroids now that they can no longer be isolated as non-signers of an agreement that has been shredded," Markey said in a statement.

But Bush insisted the deal was "good for American security because it will bring India's civilian nuclear programme into the international nonproliferation mainstream."

"The agreement also is good for the American economy," the president continued. "The agreement will help meet India's surging energy needs, and that will lessen India's growing demand for other energy supplies and help restrain energy prices for American consumers."

The president also highlighted the importance of trade with India, which his described as a rapidly expanding market fro US products.

He noted that Air India had recently ordered 68 planes from Boeing Company and US exports to India grew last year by more than 30 percent.

"And all this trade is creating jobs and opportunity in America," Bush said.

He added that in his talks with Prime Minister Singh, he made it clear that trade between the two countries "must be free and fair."