'We were prepared to walk away from the nuclear agreement'

On Russia's decision to provide fuel to Tarapur, isn't this a case of Russia jumping the gun, which critics  believe is a sign of the unraveling of the existing guidelines and protocols that exist under the NPT and other treaty obligations?

Well, I gave the answer I did because it reflects what we said to the Indian and Russian governments, and that is, this is a little bit of putting the cart before the horse and that it is proper to have a sequence in mind and to follow that sequence. Obviously, India has enormous energy needs, but we are trying to satisfy those by getting these agreements done in the United States and the NSG. That should be the first priority.

But in this particular case, as you say to Moscow and New Delhi that it's a case of putting the cart before the horse, won't you now find American businesses who are hoping for the first bite at this nuclear energy pie of India, and hoping to get the biggest chunk, say 'Hey! What's going on? The Russians have started screwing us and we could lose out?'

We sure would like…I mean, we wouldn't think that the United States would gain all of the business contracts, but we certainly would want, if our law is changed, American firms to have equal opportunities and to be in a position to be able to work with their Indian counterparts.

So Russia, putting the cart before the horse, as you say, doesn't bode well for that?

 I said what I want to say on it.

Coming to the whole Iran question,  people like Senator Lugar have not come out one way or the other on this deal, and he still says he's got to do a lot of soul-searching, convene several hearings, etc.If you don't have a guy like Sen. Lugar on board and going to bat for the Administration -- considering he's a key player -- how do you propose to push this through?

I don't want to answer a question about a specific member of Congress. That wouldn't be appropriate. So, I would just say in general, it's legitimate for members of Congress to have questions. This is a challenging, complex agreement. It's an important one.We welcome that kind of discussion, and we've had excellent discussions with Senator Lugar and he will announce his own decision on his own time. It's not for us to decide. It's for him to decide.

Also, Representatives (Henry) Hyde (Illinois Republican, who chairs the House International Relations Committee) and (Tom) Lantos (California Democrat, who is the ranking member on this panel), while saying they are willing to introduce enabling legislation on this agreement, they also spoke about unspecified conditions which they may want to attach for its approval. But the Administration has warned that any conditions would be deal-breakers and scuttle the agreement.

We are going to wait and have our own discussions with various members of Congress. The word conditions might mean something less severe than you think it means. I said, and I said very clearly, we are open to ideas. (But) We just don't want to have to reopen the agreement and renegotiate it because then…it was so difficult to piece together over one year. As a negotiator, I don't think you could ever put that back together again. And so, we'd like to leave the agreement the way it is. We'd like Congress to vote on that. But if there are other ideas that can strengthen outside that framework, we are more than happy to list to those ideas.

Also See:
Indo-US N-deal won't impact Iran: Burns