Reid sets Senate India nuclear deal vote Wednesday

By Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday scheduled a vote for Wednesday evening on a deal to end the three-decade ban on U.S. civilian nuclear trade with India, a Senate aide said.

The deal passed the House of Representatives by a margin of 298-117 on Saturday and the Democrats who control the Senate appeared to have overcome opponents within their own party.

The deal is expected to pass Congress, where it enjoys strong support from Democrats and Republicans who want to see closer ties to India, create jobs in the U.S. civil nuclear industry and cultivate the small but affluent Indian-American community.

U.S. congressional blessing is the last hurdle to the pact, which the Bush administration believes will secure a strategic partnership with the world's largest democracy, help India meet its rising energy demand and open up a market worth billions.

Critics argue the deal undermines efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and sets a precedent allowing other nations to seek to buy such technology without submitting to the full range of global nonproliferation safeguards.

If the agreement does not make it through Congress before lawmakers head home to campaign for the November 4 election, it could slip until next year.

"LANDMARK AGREEMENT"

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would not comment on whether the Bush administration had won over critics of the deal in the Senate but said the agreement would cement ties between Washington and New Delhi.

"I certainly hope that it can get done because it would be a landmark agreement for India and the United States and it would be a way to solidify what has been an extraordinary period in which U.S.-Indian relations have reached the kind of deepening that is really appropriate for two of the world's largest and great democracies," she told reporters at the start of a meeting with Hungarian Foreign Minister Kinga Goncz.

President George W. Bush wants to secure the agreement before he leaves office on January 20 and the State Department has mounted an all-out effort, including phone calls and visits to the Capitol by Rice, to win passage.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)