Washington: The United States has ruled out reopening any new inquiry against Union Carbide after an Indian court’s verdict in the 1984 Bhopal gas leak that killed over 3,000 people, hoping it would bring closure to the probe into the tragedy."Obviously this was one of the greatest industrial tragedies and industrial accidents in human history," US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Robert Blake told reporters Monday. "We hope that this verdict today helps to bring some closure to the victims and their families."
"But I don’t expect this verdict to reopen any new inquiries or anything like that. On the contrary, we hope that this is going to help to bring closure," he said in response to a question about the Bhopal court verdict sentencing seven former top managers of the Union Carbide pesticide plant to two years in prison. Blake also declined to comment when asked if the US would be more receptive to a request from India for the extradition of Warren Anderson, then chairman of the Union Carbide parent group saying "As a matter of policy, we never discuss extradition." Anderson, who was among the accused but was not named in the verdicts after the Bhopal court declared him an "absconder", lives in suburban New York. At the State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley hoped this "terrible tragedy, one of the worst industrial accidents in human history" does not inhibit the continuing expansion of economic, cultural, and political ties between the two countries.
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