Pressler is best known for advocating the now-famous Pressler Amendment, enforced in 1990.
The much-hyped US-India civil nuclear deal was just an arms purchase agreement and is not likely to be implemented, said former Republican Senator Larry Pressler, who has served as chairman of the US Senate’s Arms Control Subcommittee.
Speaking at an event organized by The Hudson Institute, a top American think-tank, in Washington, Pressler said the agreement was “dead at the very beginning” since there was “no groundwork done” by both nations.
Alleging that the deal “is more of an arms sale agreement,” Pressler added that “there is no chance of it being implemented as the liability issues have not been addressed and it has not been worked through.”
“The then President (Barack) Obama’s last trip to (New Delhi) was an arms sales trip and the poor people of India have to pay for all of these new arms that their country is buying from the U.S.,” the former senator said. “This is really one of us but it’s a new friendship we’re told. But we have to be very careful. I’m somewhat critical that India has accepted that on those terms.”
Pressler’s statement is likely to spark controversies in India as the agreement has been a point of discussion in Indian politics with the opposition parties criticizing the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government, which was in power, for signing the agreement. The left parties even withdrew their support to the union government alleging that the deal was against the interests of India.
Initiated in 2005, the civil nuclear deal was signed in October 2008, after three-decade long US sanctions following India’s first nuclear weapon test.
Though India was not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the agreement provided it the benefits enjoyed by other leading nuclear power nations.
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Pressler is best known for advocating the now-famous Pressler Amendment, enforced in 1990, that banned most US military and economic assistance to Pakistan. The amendment blocked assistance and military sales to Pakistan, including a consignment of F-16 fighter aircraft, changing forever the tenor of the United States relationships with Pakistan and India.
Last week, the Senator had warned that Pakistan was more dangerous than North Korea as it did not have control over its nuclear weapons. “The Pakistani nuclear bombs are not controlled. They are subject to sale or stealing and they could be easily gotten out of Pakistan to just about anywhere in the world,” Pressler said.
However, he rejected the possibility of the nuclear weapons held by Pakistan being used against India. But, he has urged the US government to declare Pakistan a “terror state.”