NEW DELHI: As the Biden administration enters its penultimate week in office, the US announced Monday it’s taking necessary steps to remove long-standing regulations that have prevented civil nuclear cooperation between India’s leading nuclear entities and US companies. The steps, as visiting US NSA Jake Sullivan said, are essential for realising full potential of the 2008 India-US civil nuclear deal.
Sullivan was in India from Jan 5-6 for what was his last visit abroad before leaving office and met his counterpart Ajit Doval and also external affairs minister S Jaishankar, while also calling on PM Modi. Apart from announcing the easing of curbs on Indian companies to facilitate stronger nuclear cooperation, Sullivan underscored the growing India-US defence and technology cooperation as one of the core pillars of stability in the Indo-Pacific and spoke about the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor’s potential to deliver a better growth and integration model than China’s BRI.
However, Sullivan also sounded a warning as he said for India and US to reach the “boundless” potential in ties, the two countries will have to together live up to values like “respect for rule of law that creates conditions for dynamic growth, respect for pluralism and tolerance that powers innovation and protection of basic freedoms that unleash the human spirit”. He said these were the basic truths about how the two democracies would grow and flourish.
On steps for delisting Indian nuclear entities to facilitate stronger civil nuclear cooperation, Sullivan said formal paperwork will be done soon. “This will be an opportunity to turn the page on some of the frictions of past and create opportunities for entities that have been on restrictive lists in 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,” he said while addressing a gathering at IIT-Delhi.
“As we work to build clean energy technologies to enable growth in artificial intelligence and to help US and Indian energy companies unlock their innovation potential, the Biden administration has determined that it is past time to take the next major step in cementing this partnership,” said the official, while making the announcement.
Sullivan, who along with Doval is the architect of initiatives under the pathbreaking India-US Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), also raised concerns about the transfer of any dual-use technology to Russia. “And as we see more and more new technologies diverted to unfriendly actors, the US and India are going to have to ensure that valuable dual-use technologies don’t fall into the wrong hands. That means aligning our export control systems, looking at trade measures to protect our industrial strategies from overcapacity, better securing our supply chains. And reviewing outbound and inbound investment in sensitive sectors,” said the official.
On IMEEC, Sullivan said that while the initiative had been disrupted by developments in West Asia, he had personally engaged with key countries and key leaders to keep making progress. “I’ve talked to the incoming administration about the enormous opportunity that it presents to deliver both growth and integration and a high standard alternative to what Beijing has on offer,” added Sullivan.
