Saran at India House in London on Thursday. (PTI)

London/Washington, May 26 (PTI): India today said it was committed to a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing but would not get into a legal commitment barring it from further testing.

“We are not in a position to deviate from the July 18 joint statement (on the Indo-US civil nuclear energy deal),” foreign secretary Shyam Saran said.

The Bush administration tried to allay fears of such deviation saying it wasn’t prepared at this point to impose conditions or introduce legislation, suggested by some Congress members, that can “break” the deal.

Saran was asked about the clause brought by Washington into the initial draft that the US would end cooperation with India if it tested nuclear devices. He recalled that Delhi had already publicly stated it would not accept any such clause.

Asked if he had made this clear to US under-secretary of state Nicholas Burns, with whom he held talks in London, the foreign secretary said: “It remains our position that such clause has no place in the bilateral agreement, precisely because it would change what is a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing? into a legal commitment.

“So we have pointed this out to the American side. But at the same time we have conveyed quite categorically that we are committed to the unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing.”

In Washington, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, Richard Boucher, dismissed suggestions that the accord was in serious trouble. He said the meeting between Burns and Saran to discuss India’s response to the draft agreement was “another good step forward”.

“There are a number of people (in Congress) who have raised the issue (of a legal bar on testing by India)?. There is always a variety of views and sometimes you can get lost in that,” Boucher said.

“I think we are flexible in? terms of accommodating some of the desires of Congress and have us work with them? but we are also going to make clear that we cannot do things ? legislations or conditions ? at this point that will break the deal.”

Saran said that even if the deal collapsed, there would be other elements of the Indo-US relationship that would “go forward because there is a certain logic behind it”.