The Manmohan Singh government has staved off a September crisis by bowing to Left pressure to postpone negotiations for a safeguards agreement.
NEW DELHI: The Manmohan Singh government has staved off a September crisis by bowing to Left pressure to postpone negotiations for a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. However, the next flashpoint may come in November. The next meeting of the IAEA’s board of governors, which has to approve the safeguards agreement, is scheduled that month.
If India misses the bus again, the wait will be prolonged till another board meeting is called.
According to IAEA procedures, India has to move an application for a safeguards agreement with the international nuclear watchdog before formally entering into negotiations. The draft agreement is then submitted to the board of governors for approval.
While the Left has withdrawn objections to India attending the IAEA’s annual conference in September, it has told government interlocutors that it will withdraw support as soon as India moves the application for a safeguards agreement.
A safeguards agreement with the IAEA is one of the three next steps towards operationalising the nuclear deal, the other two being a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group for the import of nuclear material and ratification for the 123 agreement from the US Congress.
Having bought time from the Left, the government’s hopes for a resolution of the nuclear standoff now rest on the mechanism that is being set up for discussions on the contentious aspects of the deal. The November flashpoint will figure in these consultations.
The shape and composition of the mechanism were discussed at the core group’s meeting on Friday evening, attended by Sonia Gandhi and the Prime Minister among others. The decisions taken at this meeting will be communicated to Left leaders when they meet Gandhi. The date and time of this meeting has not been fixed yet.
There were varying views within the government on the prospect of resolving the nuclear differences with the Left. A senior minister who supports the deal felt that the present truce was only postponing the inevitable and matters would again come to a head as the November timeline approaches.
However, the Congress is inclined to delay the confrontation for as long as possible. Its strategists feel that the government should present at least one more budget that serves as an election manifesto and then call early polls, possibly in September-October 2008.
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