The United States is finalizing steps to lift barriers on civil nuclear cooperation with Indian firms, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in New Delhi on Monday, calling it a significant step in cementing the bilateral partnership between the two countries.
A landmark deal signed in 2007 between India and the United States had ended three decades of sanctions imposed on New Delhi for conducting nuclear tests and opened the door for India to get civil nuclear technology. The agreement was expected to help India meet its burgeoning energy needs.
But Indian rules which require the liability in the case of accidents to be met by the firm that sets up a nuclear power plant rather than the operator — which do not align with global norms — had posed a hurdle to U.S. companies establishing power plants in India.
Saying that the “formal paperwork” to remove long-standing regulations on civil nuclear cooperation will be done soon, Sullivan said that “this will be an opportunity to turn the page on some of the frictions of the past and create opportunities for entities that have been on restricted list in the United States to come off those lists and enter into deep collaborations with our private sector, with our scientists and technologists.”
Sullivan’s visit to India came two weeks before a new administration under incoming President-elect Donald Trump takes charge. Speaking at the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, he called India-U.S. collaboration crucial for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.
Analysts say the visit underlines the strong Indo-U.S. partnership built in recent years and the likely continuity in those ties amid common concerns over China and strong bipartisan support for the relationship.
In an editorial, The Indian Express newspaper noted that an important common thread between Trump’s previous term and President Biden’s administration has been the U.S. policy to strengthen the strategic partnership with India. “These bilateral conversations during the final days of the transition between two administrations in Washington underline a growing strategic congruence,” the newspaper said.
Sullivan said that an initiative launched by the two countries two years ago to bolster their strategic technology partnership was an important component of the relationship.
Under the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, both countries are moving to deepen cooperation in areas like quantum computing, defense, artificial intelligence, 5G wireless networks and semiconductors — areas in which China has acquired a dominant position.
Pointing out that supply chains are moving out of China, he said that the “United States, India and other key democratic partners have been reminded abruptly and sharply that we cannot ignore the ways in which interdependencies can be weaponized against us.”
“The visit is basically a signal from the Biden administration that the India-U.S. relationship is important and their cooperation on critical technologies is an important aspect of this relationship,” according to Manoj Joshi, distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. “But while the stars are all aligned for New Delhi and Washington, we really don’t know how it will all play out under Trump.”
Sullivan met Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval and Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in New Delhi. In a post on social media platform X, Jaishankar said “Continued our ongoing discussions on deepening bilateral, regional and global cooperation. Valued the openness of our conversations in the last four years.”
New Delhi and Washington have built close ties in recent years despite differences over India’s continuing ties with Moscow since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and tensions over the alleged involvement of a former Indian government employee in a foiled plot in 2023 to assassinate a Sikh separatist who is a U.S. national.
