Formal paperwork soon, will boost civil-nuclear cooperation, says NSA Sullivan

Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service

Twenty-six years after the nuclear tests at Pokhran in May 1998 led to an embargo on several Indian atomic energy companies, the US is set to lift the sanctions, opening the route for closer cooperation in the civil-nuclear sector.

US president Biden sends letter to Modi

• US President Joe Biden, whose four-year tenure will end on Jan 20, has sent a letter to PM Modi, recalling the growth in India-US ties
• The letter was delivered by US NSA Sullivan. “The PM deeply appreciated the letter,” a statement from the PMO said
• Modi recalled his meetings with President Biden, including the one during his visit to the US in September 2024 for the Quad summit

The ban on the Indian companies stemmed from the chill in the India-US relations following the May 1998 tests.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan today said the US was finalising steps to remove the Indian companies from the Entity List to allow cooperation in the civil-nuclear area. He was speaking at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Sullivan said, “Today I can announce that the US is now finalising the necessary steps to remove long-standing regulations that have prevented civil-nuclear cooperation between India’s leading nuclear entities and US companies.”

The formal paperwork would be done soon. This would be an opportunity to turn the page on some of the frictions of the past and create opportunities for entities to come off the restricted lists in the US and enter into deep collaboration with the US, “with our private sector, scientists and technologists”, Sullivan said.

India and the US had signed the Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement in March 2006, but the sanctions on the Indian companies had remained a hindrance to any cooperation.

As per the US Federal Register, the US Export Administration Bureau had, in 1998, barred some entities of the Department of Atomic Energy — Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Indian Rare Earths, nuclear reactors, including power plants, not under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, production facilities and their collocated ammonia plants.

On the need to remove Indian entities from the barred list, Sullivan said this was the

next major step in cementing the India-US partnership.

Sullivan said in the next decade, “we will see US and Indian firms working together to build the next generation of semiconductor technologies, US and Indian astronauts conducting cutting-edge research and space exploration together”.

He said, “The US was the first country to collaborate with India on technology.”

The US, he said, was deeply invested in India’s success. He underscored the robust economic relationship, pointing out the critical role of Indian investments in the US. “Indian investments in the US have created 4,00,000 jobs by some estimates,” he said, emphasising the mutually beneficial nature of these ties.