ElBaradei, the IAEA chief, said the deal met the agency's legal requirements [AFP]

Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, on Friday told the agency's 35-member board of governors that the draft agreement satisfied its legal requirements.

Approval from the IAEA was a precondition for the India-US nuclear deal to take affect so that a system of extended checks can follow.

A total 14 of India's 22 reactors, six of which are already subject to other IAEA safeguards agreements, are expected to come under the agency's inspection norms by 2014 -- the first ones as early as  2009.

The pact to share civilian technology was unveiled in 2005 by George Bush, the US president, and Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, to help India enter the global commercial nuclear fold after being shut out for decades.

Gregory Schulte, the US ambassador to the IAEA, urged the board to approve the agreement.

Shulte said the agreement was "little different" from those between the IAEA and other countries "which have invariable been adopted by this body swiftly and by consensus," he said.

'Umbrella agreement'

"It is an umbrella agreement, which provides for any facility notified by India to the agency in the future to become subject to safegaurds," ElBaradei said.

"Precisely because it is an umbrella agreement (that does not  identify specific facility under supervision), India will also be able, in the future, to add other facilities engaged in peaceful  nuclear activities to that list and place them under safeguards," Schulte said.

However, the decision to provide access to US nuclear fuel and technology to a country that has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has developed atomic bombs in secret and conducted its first nuclear test in 1974 are some of the critics biggest concerns.

India also needs a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a group of 45 states exporting nuclear fuel and technology, whose rules ban trade with non-NPT countires.

The deal can then go to the US Congress where it must still be ratified.

The NSG is not expected to discuss exempting India from its rules until September, which could push ratification back to January 2009.

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