PM speaks to Bush, talks about difficulties in operationalising nuke deal

ABUJA:  With the UPA government virtually putting on hold the Indo-US nuclear deal, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh talked to President George W Bush on Monday and told him that there were difficulties in operationalising the deal. 
     
"The Prime Minister explained to President Bush that certain difficulties have arisen with respect to the operationalisation of the India-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement," a release issued by Prime Minister's Media Advisor Sanjaya Baru said on Monday.
     
Bush made the call to the Prime Minister.

       
The release said President Bush called the Prime Minister over telephone  and discussed both the deal and issues relating to the Doha Round of the World Trade Organisation.
       
The call came through late in the evening after attempts to establish contact between the two leaders did not come through.
       
The release did not not contain any further details on the nuclear deal between the two countries but the conversation came in the wake of the statement made by the Prime Minister last week on Friday that it would be a disappointment if the deal does not not come through and that it was "not the end of life."
        
The Prime Minister, who had staked a lot in clinching the deal and to get it operationalised, made the Friday statement in the backdrop of unrelenting opposition to the deal from the Left parties which had warned of grave consequences, an euphemism for withdrawing support to the UPA government, if the deal was implemented.
       
The government was faced with a very tight deadline for operationalising the deal under a schedule which would have first made it go to the IAEA for concluding a safeguards agreement backed up by a clearance from the Nuclear Suppliers Group for fuel assurances before the US Congress clears the 123 agreement for lifting the embargo on India in nuclear cooperation.

    
After trying to persuade the Left apparently without success, Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi gave enough indications last Friday to save the government by keeping the deal on hold at least for the timebeing.
    
Leaving little doubt that the UPA leadership was unwilling to sacrifice the government at the altar of the deal, the Prime Minister had said that if it did not come through it would be a disappointment but significantly added, "in life one has to live with certain disappointments and move on".
    
Key allies of the Congress-led UPA like NCP,RJD and the DMK also did not want the fate of the government to be linked to the rift over the deal and none wanted mid-term elections.

     
Both Prime Minister and Congress President Sonia Gandhi, speaking at a Leadership Summit, had declared that there would be no no early elections, a clear indicator that they were not not prepared to sacrifice the government at the altar of the nuclear deal with the US.
       
The Prime Minister, however, did defend the deal saying it was good for India and the world and expressed the hope that they would be able to persuade the outside allies-Left parties.  Gandhi had said the Left had problems because of their ideological position and termed their stand not unreasonable. They had a view and it had to be understood, she had said.
        
The Government and the Left parties are now slated to meet in the UPA-Left committee constituted to go into their concerns on the deal on Monday after the Puja holidays and the government's decision to put on hold the deal may be conveyed to the allies.
        
The official press release on the Singh-Bush conversation said the Prime Minister mentioned to the
President that India remained committed to the successful conclusion of the Doha Round at an early date.
         
Trade liberalisation has contributed immensely to the growth of the world economy in the last few decades and it was their duty to the global community-like everyone else's-to ensure that the Doha Round too took the world forward on the path of removing barriers to trade.

    
Singh said that the draft text in circulation could be the basis for discussions towards an agreed outcome in Agriculture and Industrial Tariffs (NAMA). Although there are grey areas in the text and specific numbers which need to be agreed upon, it gives broad indications of the range of possibilities on most issues.
     
He emphasised that India was comfortable with most of the elements of this text. It was a reasonable compromise between differing positions of various countries. As was true of any trade deal, it involved give-and-take by all and India was ready to do its share of giving in this regard.
     
The key to the success of the round is agriculture. Singh, however, emphasised the importance of taking care of the vulnerability of two-third of the population - 650 million people -- which was dependent on agriculture for sustenance.
    
This meant that India needed some degree of protection through Special Products and Safeguards on which it needed greater clarity. "This is not yet there and this issue is critical for India," the release said.
    
"India can by and large live with what is on the table and has concerns only on agriculture. We will try to help in reaching a compromise. The Prime Minister said that he would instruct the Commerce Minister to work on these lines," the release said adding, the US, as the leading economy of the world, could ensure a successful outcome for this round.
    
"India will play a contributory and constructive role," it said.