"India retains its sovereign rights, but the USA retains its legal rights as well," undersecretary of state Nicholas Burns said Saturday when asked if New Delhi has the right to test.

Noting that the agreement has taken into account the "worst case" scenario, he said: "We hope that it (Right of Return of nuclear fuel and technology) won't be necessary because we hope that conditions that prompt it will not materialise." Burns suggested that New Delhi may not explode an atomic device as "advanced nuclear powers" like the USA and the UK "largely do not test nuclear weapons" in the modern world. He said the USA preserved the "legal right" to recall fuel and technology but that would be the "choice" of the President of the day and "not automatic".

"If somehow supplies for environmental reasons or for political reasons is discontinued to India, then, of course, India has the benefit of working with the USA and other countries in construction of a strategic fuel supply reserve that could help it. I think there are probably more likely scenarios than the one you are asking about nuclear testing," he said.

"The reality is that India is not in a situation where it is currently testing," he said. But if there is a nuclear test, then American law says the President of the USA would have to decide whether or not to ask for fuel and technology back, Burns said. He hoped the situation demanding recall of fuel and technology will not arise.

Burns explained that four specific fuel assurances that President Bush made to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on 2 March, 2006 had been written verbatim in Hyde Act. One of the assurances is that the USA will help India create a multilateral reserve of fuel. He said the USA intends to be "very supportive" of India at the Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting and help convince other countries that the Indo-US nuclear deal was in everyone's interests.

Two US lawmakers have expressed reservations over the civilian nuclear agreement with India and said the accord needed to be examined in the context of New Delhi's "deepening" relations with Tehran. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a lawmaker from President Bush's Republican Party, issued a statement voicing concern over grant of reprocessing right to India and ambiguity over action that could be taken if New Delhi were to conduct an atomic test.