U.S. says committed to nuclear treaty with India

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration is committed to a nuclear cooperation agreement with India and will push for congressional approval once India finishes work on the deal, the State Department said on Wednesday.

But an influential member of Congress and critic of the accord, U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said there was there was no longer enough time on U.S. lawmakers' calendar in this election year to get the accord approved by both houses of Congress.

India took a step toward putting the long-stalled nuclear deal into effect by sending a draft nuclear safeguard accord with the International Atomic Energy Agency to the IAEA's board of governors, the U.N. watchdog said earlier on Wednesday.

"We are committed to this deal," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

"If the Indian government completes a lot of the discussions it has been having about moving forward on a variety of different fronts regarding this deal, the U.S. government is committed to doing whatever it can to fulfill its commitments here domestically," McCormack said.

He said the Bush administration had been in close contact with key members of the Democratic-majority Congress to keep them updated.

Before the pact can go to the U.S. Congress, it will need approval of IAEA board of governors, then the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, where there are doubts about it because India is outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The pact is potentially worth billions of dollars to U.S. and European nuclear supply companies, and would give India more energy alternatives to drive its booming economy.

But critics say the deal reverses 30 years of U.S. policy opposing nuclear cooperation with India after it developed nuclear weapons in contravention of global rules.

Markey, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce committee, said the Bush administration was "running on fumes and fiction" if it thought the deal could still get through Congress this year, when lawmakers will be in a hurry to go home this fall and campaign for November elections.

"There is simply not enough time left on the congressional calendar this year to vote on US-India nuclear deal once the International Atomic Energy Agency and Nuclear Suppliers' Group have considered it," Markey said in a statement.

(Editing by Doina Chiacu)