U.S., India sign landmark nuclear deal

NEW DELHI -- Reversing decades of U.S. policy, President Bush ushered India into the world's exclusive nuclear club Thursday with a landmark agreement to share nuclear reactors, fuel and expertise with the energy-starved nation in return for its acceptance of international safeguards.\nEight months in the making, the accord would end India's long isolation as a nuclear maverick that defied world appeals and developed nuclear weapons. India agreed to separate its tightly entwined nuclear industry -- declaring 14 reactors as commercial facilities and eight as military -- and to open the civilian side to international inspections for the first time.\nThe agreement must be approved by Congress, and Bush acknowledged that might be difficult because India still refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.\n"I'm trying to think differently, not stay stuck in the past," said Bush, who has made improving relations with India a goal of his administration. \nThe deal was sealed a day before Bush begins an overnight visit to Pakistan, a close ally struggling with its own terrorism problems. An American diplomat and three other people were killed when a suicide attacker rammed a car packed with explosives into theirs. The bombing was in Karachi, about 1,000 miles south of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, where Bush will meet with President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.\n"Terrorists and killers are not going to prevent me from going to Pakistan," Bush said at a news conference with Singh in New Delhi.\nBush aides said there were security concerns about the president going to Pakistan but that officials were satisfied adequate precautions were in place. \nThe U.S.-India nuclear deal was seen as the centerpiece of better relations between the world's oldest and most powerful democracy and the world's largest and fastest-growing one.\nBush acknowledged that Washington and New Delhi were estranged during the Cold War, when India declared itself a nonaligned nation but tilted toward Moscow. "Now the relationship is changing dramatically," he said.\nBush and Singh announced new bilateral cooperation on issues from investment, trade and health to agriculture, the environment and even mangoes -- Bush agreed to resume imports of the juicy, large-pitted fruit after a 17-year ban.\n"India and Pakistan had never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and therefore they weren't in violation of it by having nuclear programs," he said.\nBush said helping India with nuclear power would reduce the global demand for energy which has sent gasoline prices soaring.