Make-or-break month for Indo-US talks

NEW YORK: There is a strong determination on the part of key government officials from both sides to embark upon intense negotiations this month on the troubled India-US bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement, experts and officials said on Wednesday. Members of the US Congress and non-proliferation experts have been pointing to sharp differences on the 123 Agreement on which the India-US nuclear deal is contingent.

“According to diplomats, negotiators from both sides are scheduled to meet this month. My understanding is that the US first provided India with a draft of the bilateral nuclear agreement and India responded with its own counter-proposals,” Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, told DNA.

“The negotiations are due to begin in a couple of weeks,” added Kimball, who had picked holes in the India-US civil nuclear energy deal during an acrimonious hearing in May in the House International Relations Committee.

Kimball, along with certain other senators have suggested that action on the nuclear deal should be delayed until the package is fully negotiated, including the detailed 123 Agreement which is linked to the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954. Other members of Congress also want the agreement under which the International Atomic Energy Agency will supervise India’s civilian nuclear program to be hammered out before approving the accord.

While working on the small print of the draft 123 Agreement, the US tried to stick a rider suggesting nuclear energy cooperation with India would be snapped if New Delhi were to conduct an atomic test. But the Indian foreign ministry quickly nixed the provision telling US negotiators that such a rider had no place in the proposed agreement from the get-go.

However, there are growing concerns that the Indian nuclear deal will be delayed for months to come because of Congressional preoccupation with elections later this year.

According to power brokers on Capitol Hill it is nothing but politics.  Most Democrats, who have raised objections to the deal, want stronger relations with India, but are reluctant to hand President Bush a foreign policy coup so close to the November elections. Mark India’s longtime friend Hillary Clinton’s deafening silence on the nuclear subject.

Compromise in Indo-US nuclear deal sought

WASHINGTON: A New York-based think tank, Council for Foreign Relations, has advocated a two-step compromise on the US-India nuclear deal, which will formally endorse its basic framework while delaying final approval until it is assured that critical nonproliferation needs are met.

The report, released on Wednesday, cautioned that if the Congress does not approve the deal, “it would damage bilateral relationship.” According to the report’s authors Michael Levi and Charles Ferguson, “The Bush administration has stirred deep passions and put Congress in the seemingly impossible bind of choosing between approving the deal and damaging nuclear nonproliferation, or rejecting the deal and thereby setting back an important strategic relationship.”

Instead, they say, Congress should focus on preventing Indian nuclear testing and fundamental changes in Indian nuclear strategy, rather than on blocking growth in the number of Indian nuclear weapons.” The report adds that a US-India deal would actually strengthen America’s position in Asia.

— Sachin Kalbag