New Delhi, India – Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Bush announced Thursday their nations have reached agreement on a landmark nuclear deal, a coup for Bush’s first visit to India.
“We have reached an understanding on the implementation of our agreement on civil nuclear cooperation,” Singh said during a joint appearance by the two leaders.
Under the accord, the United States would shareAmerican nuclear know-how and fuel with India to help power its fast-growing economy, even though India won’t sign the international nonproliferation treaty. It would represent a major shift in policy for the United States, which imposed temporary sanctions on India in 1998 after it conducted nuclear tests.
“We concluded an historic agreement today on nuclear power,” Bush said. “It’s not an easy job for the prime minister to achieve this agreement. … It’s not easy for the American president to achieve this agreement.”
Wednesday, four years after the United States and allies toppled the terrorist- supporting Taliban regime of Afghanistan, President Bush arrived in Kabul for his first visit Wednesday to face questions about the still-elusive Osama bin Laden, who has found refuge in the region.
“I am confident he will be brought to justice,” Bush said of the fugitive al-Qaeda leader during a news conference outside the Afghan presidential palace.
“What’s happening is that we’ve got U.S. forces on the hunt for not only bin Laden but anybody who plots and plans with bin Laden,” said Bush
The president made an unannounced stop at Bagram Air Base en route to New Delhi, India, and Islamabad, Pakistan, this week.
“It’s not a matter of if they are captured and brought to justice, but when they’re captured and brought to justice,” Bush said.
It’s a particularly sensitive question on the president’s three-day trip to India and Pakistan, where bin Laden and chief lieutenants have long been suspected of hiding in a renegade region along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border that has remained resistant to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s campaign to track down terrorists.
Bush will meet with Musharraf on Saturday in Islamabad.
Musharraf, an army general who seized power in a 1999 coup and quickly allied with the U.S. in the aftermath of the terrorist assaults of Sept. 11, 2001, boasts of having captured 700 terrorists in cooperation with the United States.
Yet bin Laden, mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, remains the most notorious and elusive of a besieged al-Qaeda leadership. Bush promised to raise the issue in Pakistan.
Bush’s five-hour stop in Afghanistan was his first visit there. The White House did not announce the visit until Air Force One was en route.
The Chicago Tribune contributed to this report.
