Foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon flew out to Vienna on Tuesday to prepare for the crucial meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group beginning Thursday.
Expects impeccable non-proliferation record will lead nuclear suppliers to clear deal without conditions
NEW DELHI: Foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon flew out to Vienna on Tuesday to prepare for the crucial meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group beginning Thursday. India is seeking a “clean waiver” from NSG members to allow New Delhi to import much needed fuel to feed its nuclear power plants.
Menon will head the high-powered Indian delegation which includes the PM’s special envoy Shyam Saran and senior officials from the department of atomic energy. Menon and the Indian team will discuss with US and German officials the procedures to be followed. Since India is not a member of the NSG, the US, UK, Russia and France are expected to push New Delhi’s case before the group.
Reports that India has been asked to take the floor on Thursday to speak about its excellent non-proliferation record, was not confirmed. A spokesman for the current German NSG chair referred to the confidentiality of the NSG. He added: “Germany will chair the NSG in a responsible way”.
India has a tough battle ahead. The government is aware that it will not be as smooth as the earlier nod given by the International Atomic Energy Agency, where even Pakistan did not go ahead to demand a vote for the safeguards agreement.
The anxiety in South Block is not over the waiver being blocked but that several countries with strong non-proliferation concerns at home would try to place various conditions before agreeing to allow an exception. New Delhi is in no position to agree to any “prescriptive or restrictive” clauses, considering that the nuclear deal has divided the country’s political establishment down the middle and forced prime minister Manmohan Singh to seek a vote of confidence in Parliament.
“India and the US are co-ordinating efforts to get through to all 45 members of the NSG for a clean waiver. The two sides will assess the situation after going through the response of various countries and take the final few steps necessary to gain a consensus,” a senior official who did not wish to be identified said.
Austria, New Zealand, Ireland , Norway, Netherlands and even Switzerland are not expected to cave in tamely to US demands and are likely to ask for major commitment from India on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to show its on the side of non-proliferation.
Strange as it may sound to comrade Prakash Karat and the BJP’s LK Advani, the general feeling among most countries is that the Bush administration has given in totally to India’s demands without getting the necessary undertaking to work for non proliferation concerns from India.
The non-proliferation lobby insists that before India is granted a waiver, NSG states should call upon it to declare that it has stopped fissile material production and ask India to transform its nuclear test moratorium pledge into a legally binding pledge, perhaps by signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
g_seema@dnaindia.net
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