India nuclear deal pushed

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The proposed U.S.-India nuclear deal will not open the door for Iran and other rogue states to acquire atomic weapons and technology, the Bush administration's lead negotiator insisted yesterday.

"We don't see the connection between what Iran is doing and what India seeks to do," Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said at the Heritage Foundation.

The administration has begun selling the India deal in earnest on Capitol Hill, where several top lawmakers are either cool to the accord or openly skeptical.

Mr. Burns, speaking five days after helping nail down the deal in New Delhi, rejected critics' assertions that bending the rules for India -- which has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) -- will make it more difficult to rally opposition against Tehran.

Mr. Burns said Iran's Islamic regime was an "autocratic state" that hid its nuclear programs from international inspectors for nearly two decades. Iran enjoys "no trust in the international community."

India, however, is a peaceful democracy that, under theagreement, would place 14 of its 22 nuclear reactors under monitoring and inspection by the United Nations.

"We think these are two countries that are going in diametrically opposed directions," he said. "India in the responsible one; Iran is the irresponsible one."

South Korean analysts also have warned that the India agreement could complicate the multilateral effort to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs.

Administration officials conceded they have a major selling job to do on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers complained that they had been given little notice when the agreement was floated in the summer.

Key Republican lawmakers such as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde of Illinois have taken a wait-and-see stance, saying they needed to examine the details of the New Delhi deal.