India still needs a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) - 45 states exporting nuclear fuel and technology - and ratification by the US Congress before the deal can go through.
The NSG was expected to hold its next meeting on August 21. A few countries, including Brazil, Japan, Ireland, Austria and Switzerland, expressed reservations about the deal in the debate that preceded the decision and Iran accused the United States of double standards for seeking co-operation with India while trying to halt Iran's nuclear programme.
In a first reaction, Britain welcomed the board's decision Friday. "We believe it (the India-US nuclear deal) will make a significant contribution to energy and climate security," the British ambassador to the IAEA, Simon Smith, said in a statement.
"It also represents a gain for the non-proliferation regime by bringing India further into, and thereby strengthening, the broader non-proliferation framework." Critics have said the deal undermines international non-proliferation efforts as it rewards a country that has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and will provide US nuclear technology to a state that developed atomic bombs in secret and conducted its first nuclear test in 1974.
Under the safeguards agreement, 14 of India's 22 reactors, six of which are already subject to other safeguard agreements, are expected to come under agency supervision by 2014 - the first ones as early as 2009. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said the agreement was "of indefinite duration."