US to end nuclear cooperation restrictions on Indian entities

The US will remove regulations that have prevented cooperation between key Indian nuclear entities and American companies, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday, marking a major step forward in implementing the landmark 2005 civil nuclear agreement.

- Rezaul H Laskar

The top official of the outgoing Joe Biden administration made the announcement during a public address at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi following meetings with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval and external affairs minister S Jaishankar.

The move, Sullivan said, is an opportunity to move away from "frictions of the past" and acknowledges India's "open and transparent engagement" with the US.

India and the US unveiled an ambitious plan for civil nuclear cooperation during a meeting between then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former president George W Bush in July 2005. The India-US civil nuclear agreement was sealed in 2008 but plans for the supply of US nuclear reactors to India did not materialize because of regulatory hurdles.

Sullivan, who was speaking on the theme of "The US and India: Building a shared future", described the move to remove the regulations as a "history step".

Referring to the unrealized vision of civil nuclear cooperation laid out by Singh and Bush, he said: "Today, I can announce that the US is now finalizing the necessary steps to remove long-standing regulations that have prevented civil nuclear cooperation between India's leading nuclear entities and US companies."

He added, "The formal paperwork will be done soon, but this will be an opportunity to turn the page on some of the frictions of the past and create opportunities for entities that have been on restricted lists in the US to come off those lists and enter into deep collaboration with the US, with our private sector, with our scientists and technologists to move civil nuclear cooperation forward together."

Though Sullivan didn't give details of the Indian entities covered by the move, US documents state that several organizations linked to the Department of Atomic Energy are on the list of restricted entities for nuclear cooperation and commerce.