Washington: Senior lawmakers of US have said that though it may be ?perfectly appropriate? for the US Congress to include conditionalities as part of a legislation on the civilian nuclear agreement with India, the larger question to be asked is whether the benefits of adding the impositions would outweigh the costs.
Democrat Gary ckerman, in his opening statement to the House International Relations Committee hearing on 'US-India Global Partnership: How significant for American interests,' noted that there are already many serious and difficult conditions contained in the July 18 joint agreement.
"It's appropriate for the Congress to include the conditions in the joint statement, but I have yet to be persuaded that the benefit of adding additional conditions would outweigh their cost," a senior member of the House International Relations Panel said.
"As long as the US administration is forthcoming with information on Indian progress, members of the Congress will be able to decide for themselves that India is working to keep its commitments even as we are working to keep ours," he said.
"Indeed, I think that if we add additional conditions that the Government of India had previously rejected during the negotiations, the result will be not only scuttling the agreement itself, but significant, and I think lasting damage to the US-India relationship," Ackerman added.
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