WASHINGTON -- The United States will cut off all trade for two years with Indian and Russian space agencies as a result of Moscow's sale of rocket engines to Delhi, an administration official said Monday.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the sale of cryogenic rocket engines, fueled with liquid nitrogen, violates a multilateral treaty signed by 18 Western nations.
The Missile Technology Control Regime, to which neither India nor Russia are a party, bans the sale of missile systems capable of carrying a 500-kilogram payload to a minimum distance of 300 kilometers.
'The MTCR partners have concluded that the deal is inconsistent with those guidelines,' Boucher said. 'Since the facts are clear and since the parties to the transaction have declined to terminate those activities, the United States has imposed sanctions in accordance with our law.'
Under the sanctions, he said, the United States will not trade equipment or technology for two years with the Russian space agency Glavkosmos or with the Indian Space Research Organization.
Boucher said the administration would consider a waiver of sanctions if the rocket deal were terminated.
The Russian rocket engines, valued at $200 million, will be used to lift geosynchronous, or fixed, communications satellites into space, Indian officials said.
But Boucher said U.S. law does not 'make any distinction between the technology that is used in ballistic missiles and the technology for space-launched vehicles.'
'The technology for both systems is virtually identical,' he said.
The sanctions will not affect trade with other Russian or Indian government entities, including the sale of more than $300 million of U. S. military equipment to Delhi.
Although the United States plans to purchase nuclear pulse engines from Russia, the administration could not say whether that deal would be affected by sanctions.
Lalit Mansingh, deputy chief at the Indian Embassy in Washington, said Defense Minister Sharad Bawar was led to believe that the sale was not a violation of MTCR agreements when he held in-depth discussions on the matter with his counterparts in Washington last month.
He said the Indian defense delegation explained to administration officials that 'the sole use of these engines was to propel satellites. '
'There is absolutely no military application,' he said.
The deal with Russia was inked almost a year ago and India has already made a down payment, Mansingh said.
Boucher said the administration has during the past year repeatedly expressed its concerns over the deal to Russia and India, but it apparently had no impact.
'We tried at various levels and various ways to talk them out of it and it doesn't look like we've succeeded,' Boucher said.
