United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice [Images] on Wednesday revealed that India had tried to negotiate safeguards that were not permanent for its civilian nuclear reactors but that the US had held firm and nailed down permanent safeguards on the 14 reactors, agreed to under the separation plan of civil-military nuclear facilities.

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During the question and answer session that followed her testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the US-India civilian nuclear agreement, Rice said, "I can tell you that the Indians wanted to negotiate safeguards that were not necessarily permanent. But that was the red line for us. We were particularly concerned about the permanence of these safeguards."

Full text: Condi Rice's Senate Speech

"So with regard to the negotiation of the deal, we are maintaining our obligations under all of these very important arrangements and treaties that we have," she added.

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"Our goal here was to negotiate an agreement that kept us firmly in compliance with our Nuclear Supplier Group obligations, that kept us firmly in compliance with our International Atomic Energy Agency obligations and one that did not run afoul of our obligations as members of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," Rice disclosed.

"But there have to be some change made to existing laws and regulations in order for us to be able to engage in nuclear commerce with India," she added.

Complete Coverage: Indo-US Nuclear Tango