Cheney warns Congress against delaying Indian nuclear deal

"We hope Congress will be quick to enact legislation that enables our two nations to move forward on this important agreement without delay," Cheney said at a meeting of American and Indian business leaders in Washington.

Given the agreement's "strategic" importance, Cheney said "we must be sure amendments or delays on the US side do not risk wasting this critical opportunity."

He said he and President George W. Bush were confident however that the deal would receive "strong bipartisan support" in the US House of Representatives and Senate.

Key foreign policy committees of the two chambers would vote on the deal next week after poring over it for nine months.

Cheney called the deal, clinched in March between Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after an initial September 2005 agreement, as "one of the most important strategic foreign policy initiatives of the government."

"The logic of the deal is straightforward," he said, citing, among other reasons, India's immense energy needs and its "very good nonproliferation track record.”

The foreign relations committee of the House of Representatives will meet on June 27 and its Senate counterpart the next day to consider the deal, which requires mandatory Congress backing.

The panels' findings on the deal would then be submitted to the two full chambers for consideration.

The Bush administration wants to secure passage of the deal before the November mid-term Congressional elections but it apparently lacks wide and bipartisan backing.

"I'm not going to be so rash, perhaps foolish to predict a vote count but we are very confident that we have majority support in the House and Senate," said Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns.

He warned however that the administration would oppose any moves in Congress to make amendments that would effectively "kill the legislation and force us to renegotiate" the complex deal.

Under the proposal, India, a non signatory of the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), would be allowed access to long-denied civilian nuclear technology in return for placing its atomic reactors under international safeguards.