US President George W. Bush headed for India yesterday 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.
The pact is touted as the cornerstone of an emerging strategic partnership between the two countries after nearly a half-century of Cold War estrangement. But negotiators have struggled to settle differences over how to separate India's tightly entwined civilian and military atomic programs.
"Our people are talking to the Indians, today on the plane," Bush said during a stop in Afghanistan. "We'll be doing so when we land in New Delhi."
He called the pact a "difficult issue" for both governments.
"Hopefully we can reach agreement, and if not we will continue to work on it until we do," he said.
The last-minute efforts to seal the nuclear pact coupled with yesterday's protests underscored India's mixed feelings toward Bush and the US -- a country many here see as a friend but also a global bully.
While Bush remains more popular in India than he is in many other countries, some here object to US policies, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. India, an overwhelmingly Hindu nation of more than 1 billion people, has the world's second-largest Muslim population.
Indian and US officials had hoped to seal the nuclear deal before Bush arrived, but disagreements over which of India's nuclear facilities would be put under international safeguards have delayed talks.
"We need a certain degree of clarity on our mutual commitments," Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran told reporters on Tuesday. "We need to make sure there are no ambiguities which may create difficulties for us in the future."
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice singled out one particularly contentious subject.
"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," she said.
Rice and US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley briefed reporters on Air Force One as Bush flew from Washington.
The pact would allow the US to provide nuclear technology and fuel desperately needed by India to feed its booming but energy-starved economy.
also see stories:
Thousands rally against Bush
India hangs on a nuclear breakthrough
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS