WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday acknowledged negotiations to conclude a nuclear deal with India were moving slowly, but she foresaw a deal by the end of the year.
"Wrapping up this agreement will open new doors of cooperation for us in the nuclear field," she told the U.S.-India Business Council. And, she said, it will open even more doors in business, science, agriculture and development - and perhaps most importantly, strengthen international security.
The outline of the agreement, worked out last year, calls for the United States to provide technology for civilian nuclear programs in India.
Wrapping up the accord has been slowed over how use of the technology would be monitored in the absence of oversight by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Bush administration is trying to take steps to protect against the sort of black market operation in nuclear technology run by Pakistan's top scientist, A.Q. Khan.
One of the biggest sticking points has been American reluctance to allow India to reprocess spent atomic fuel - a key step in making weapons-grade nuclear material.
For its part, India is skittish about intensive U.S. oversight.
"Had this been easy, it would have been done a long time ago," Rice said. "Both sides have determined that it is worth it."
"With will and determination and more hard work to do, I am certain that we will reach final agreement and be in a position to complete this deal by the end of the year," she said.
Rice also said it would be a "tragedy and a true shame" if the United States and India did not settle differences over world trade talks.
However, Rice said: "I'm happy to say that India and the United States are accomplishing a great deal together these days."
"We are only just scratching the surface of what we can do," she said.
Brazil and India have criticized the United States for failing to offer deep enough cuts in the billions of dollars of subsidies it pays annually to American farmers.
The European Union and the United States say the two emerging economic powers refuse to offer new market opportunities for manufacturing exports.
On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, a senior House Democrat said the black market in nuclear technology run by Pakistan's top scientist probably was still in operation under new management.
Rep. Gary Ackerman said Khan, who Pakistan placed under house arrest, provided centrifuges and equipment to Iran, advancing its nuclear program by years.
Ackerman, D-N.Y., said Khan also provided centrifuge machines and other equipment to North Korea in exchange for missiles, and an entire enrichment program to Libya, "soup to nuts," and the design for a nuclear weapon.
While Pakistani officials have declared the case closed, most of Khan's co-conspirators around the world "probably continue their trade in nuclear-related materials," Ackerman said at a hearing of the House Middle East and South Asia subcommittee that he chaired.
The Bush administration "can believe whatever convenient fiction it likes," Ackerman said, but "the Khan network is more likely to be open under new management rather than truly out of business." The State Department did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.
The contention that the Khan network probably has survived drew support from a senior Republican, Rep. Ed Royce of California, at the hearing of the House Mideast subcommittee.
"It's not clear that the Khan network has been rolled up," he said. Pakistan bears "especially close watching," Royce said.
And Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., said Khan was not an independent operator but part of a "government structure" in Pakistan. "One way or another, Pakistan has to tell us the whole story," said Sherman, who is chairman of the House terrorism and nonproliferation subcommittee. Sherman said Pakistan's President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, "has all the documents," but the Bush administration is not applying pressure to get them.
A former top State Department official, Mark Fitzpatrick, said Khan's covert nuclear assistance to Iran allowed it to skip many steps in the development of uranium enrichment technology that appears to be intended for nuclear weapons.
"At least some of Khan's associates appear to have escaped law-enforcement attention and could, after a period of lying low, resume their black market business," said Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow for nonproliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. But at this point, he said he did not see "any evidence to network was still operating."
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Associated Press Writer Foster Klug contributed to this report.
