BANGOR – The United States and India are on the verge of closing a controversial deal related to India’s use of nuclear energy and weapons, an expert told a group at the Bangor Public Library on Monday.

The agreement would involve the U.S. supplying India with technology and support for its civilian nuclear generation program, according to Deepti Choubey, deputy director of the Nonproliferation Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.

Choubey was invited to speak to the Bangor Foreign Policy Forum, a group of about 45 area professionals who gather regularly to learn about international issues. She noted that the views expressed were her own and not necessarily those of the Carnegie Endowment.

“Controversy surrounding this deal is related to the connection between efforts to generate electricity using nuclear energy and the development of nuclear weapons,” Choubey said.

The technology used to create nuclear reactor fuel or to reprocess spent fuel from a reactor can be used to create nuclear weapons, Choubey said. It is this dual-use situation that is at the heart of the Iranian nuclear crisis, she said.

For the past 30 years, India has refused to give up its nuclear weapons program and sign the international Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and has thus been largely excluded from international trade of nuclear technology, Choubey said.

The Bush administration reversed three decades of U.S. nonproliferation policy when it called for full civilian nuclear energy cooperation with India, Choubey said. The July 2005 U.S.-India Joint Statement declared that as a responsible country with advanced nuclear technology, India should acquire the same benefits and advantages as other countries.

The Bush administration saw improved strategic relations with India as an important move to counterbalance and perhaps contain China’s growing influence in Asia.

“Because the administration has vowed to help India become a major world power in the 21st century, it is critical to assess whether this bid for enhanced status for India benefits the global nonproliferation regime or comes at its expense,” Choubey said.

Proponents of the deal argue that it will bring India into the “nonproliferation mainstream,” Choubey said. The Bush administration seeks to provide India with the same benefits and advantages as other leading countries with advanced nuclear technology, without asking India to also sign up for the nonproliferation obligations other countries have acknowledged.

India would be required to separate civilian from military nuclear facilities and place civilian facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency safety standards.

Congress has already given the Bush administration a general endorsement in the change of policy. Last December, it passed legislation known as the Hyde Act to create an exception from the general requirement that U.S. nuclear trading partners accept IAEA safeguards on all of their nuclear facilities.

The U.S. is expected to bring the completed deal back to Congress early next year and Choubey predicts it will pass.

“In conclusion, I view this as a missed opportunity for India to have held themselves to a maximal level of leadership and responsibility rather than the minimal level,” Choubey said.