page_title: India–United States Civil Nuclear Agreement
section_title: Formal signing of the deal
hierarchical_section_title: India–United States Civil Nuclear Agreement / Formal signing of the deal
caption_attribution_description: English: Secretary Condoleezza Rice and Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, sign the US-India Civilian Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.
context_page_description: The 123 Agreement signed between the United States of America and the Republic of India is known as the U.S.–India Civil Nuclear Agreement or Indo-US nuclear deal. The framework for this agreement was a July 18, 2005, joint statement by then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then U.S. President George W. Bush, under which India agreed to separate its civil and military nuclear facilities and to place all its civil nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards and, in exchange, the United States agreed to work toward full civil nuclear cooperation with India. This U.S.-India deal took more than three years to come to fruition as it had to go through several complex stages, including amendment of U.S. domestic law, especially the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, a civil-military nuclear Separation Plan in India, an India-IAEA safeguards agreement and the grant of an exemption for India by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, an export-control cartel that had been formed mainly in response to India's first nuclear test in 1974.
context_section_description: There was speculation the Indo-US deal would be signed on October 4, 2008 when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in India. The deal was to be inked by Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The two leaders were to sign the deal at 2 pm at the Hyderabad House in New Delhi. But Mr. Mukherjee announced that India would wait for the U.S. president to sign the 123 agreement legislation first into law and address India's concerns on fuel supply guarantees and the legal standing of the 123 agreement in the accompanying signing statement.
  Ms Rice was aware of the Indian decision before she left Washington. But she was very hopeful that the deal would be signed as the U.S. State Department had said that the President's signature was not prerequisite for Rice to ink the deal. Rice had earlier said that there were still a number of administrative details to be worked out even as she insisted that the US would abide by the Hyde Act on the testing issue:
  There are a lot of administrative details that have to be worked out. This (the deal) was only passed in our Congress two days ago. The President is looking forward to signing the bill, sometime, I hope, very soon, because we'll want to use it as an opportunity to thank all of the people who have been involved in this", said Rice.
  In Washington, a Senate Democratic aide said that such a delay was not that unusual because legislation needed to be carefully reviewed before being sent to the White House.
  US President George W. Bush signed the legislation on the Indo-US nuclear deal into law on October 8. The new law, called the United States-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Non-proliferation Enhancement Act, was signed by President Bush at a brief White House function in the presence of the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, Vice-President Dick Cheney and the Indian Ambassador to the U.S. Ronen Sen besides a large gathering of other dignitaries. The final administrative aspect of the deal was completed after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee signed the bilateral instruments of the 123 Agreement in Washington on October 10 paving the way for operationalization of the deal between the two countries.
caption: Secretary Rice and Indian Minister for External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee after signing the 123 agreement in Washington on October 10, 2008
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