Despite Left warning, IAEA negotiations likely next month

NEW DELHI: With the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) likely to meet in Vienna on Thursday to discuss the India-US civil nuclear deal, the government appears ready to take forward negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) next month despite the Left's caveat not to continue with it.

"We are hopeful of concluding negotiations with the IAEA next month," a reliable source privy to those involved in nuclear negotiations said.

"There are political considerations. But we will go ahead," the source added on a day the government and the Left parties held their second meeting to address issues relating to the implications of the 123 bilateral civil nuclear agreement on India's foreign policy and its energy programme.

The external affairs ministry chose not to comment on the status of India's negotiations with the IAEA. "I have nothing to say on that," spokesperson Navtej Sarna said. 

K. Subrahmanyam, who heads a task force appointed by the government to review India's nuclear policy, said: "India has only one step to take, that is, to complete its negotiations with the IAEA. This will be done next month. We have time on hand to complete the deal.

"The US has called a meeting of the NSG on the sidelines of IAEA in Vienna tomorrow. They will hold preliminary discussions on the nuclear deal. It's for the US to persuade the NSG for rules change in favour of India," he said.

Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar is in Vienna to attend a meeting of the IAEA, of which India is a member. He has tactfully kept quiet on when New Delhi will begin negotiations with the UN nuclear watchdog to place its civilian nuclear reactors under India-specific safeguards.  

"In all probability it will go through," Subrahmanyam said, when asked about political opposition to the deal from the government's Left allies and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

"The 123 agreement will sail through the US Congress as there is bipartisan support for the nuclear deal," he said.

Bharat Karnad, a strategic expert and a critic of the nuclear deal, disagreed. He contended that the future of the deal was in question as a majority in the Indian parliament was opposed to it.

Karnad said even if the government was ready to take a huge political risk and go ahead with the deal and risk its existence in the process, future governments would question the deal's legitimacy.

"If the government falls on this issue, then successive governments are within their right to withdraw the deal. According to international laws, India will not be bound by a deal done by a failing government," Karnad said.

The BJP has already said that if they come to power, they will review the deal, he pointed out. "It's over. The deal is on its last legs," he said.

US ambassador David Mulford Wednesday sought a speeding up of what he called the "last steps" - India's IAEA negotiations and the NSG rule change - so that the deal is endorsed in time before Washington is swamped by election fever early next year.

"Time is of the essence," Mulford said here at the fourth India-US economic summit, stressing the advantages of the deal that will end India's isolation from the nuclear mainstream after a gap of three decades.

Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Prakash Karat has warned the government of serious consequences if the government does not put the deal on hold for six months.

The government does not appear to be in a mood to listen.

This month, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal had said that the government's pledge to the Left parties was that it would not operationalise the nuclear deal till it "takes into account" the communist concerns.

But the government will not be bound by the Left's concerns, he pointed out.

Sibal, however, made it clear that "operationalisation" of the deal does not mean India-IAEA safeguards agreement but the signing of the 123 agreement by the two sides after it is endorsed by the US Congress.