JYOTI MALHOTRA
New Delhi, June 2, 2007: India and the US are ``closer and closer’’ to cracking the code of their nuclear deal, but the final frontier will take a few more rounds to be breached, beyond the encounter between Prime Minister and George Bush in Germany next week, and perhaps right up to another meeting between the two in the US in September.
``So far we are well on our way to (finalizing the nuclear deal), in fact we are close to doing so,’’ Foreign Secretary Shiv Shanker Menon said today after three days of talks with top US diplomat Nicholas Burns.
And in what amounted to the most positive spin yet on this very complex issue that is bound to revolutionise the nature of the bilateral relationship, Menon added : ``We are closer and closer to being entirely on the same page, but there are interlinked issues that still need to be resolved.’’
Asking the question to himself at the briefing, ``Am I satisfied?’’, Menon proceeded to answer it himself too : ``Yes, we have made considerable progress during this round, but there is still a gap…We are optimistic we will make a deal, but I don’t like deadlines…There are so many issues that are interlinked, but both have the will to make successful conclusions.’’
The Foreign Secretary also stressed that both sides already had a ``political understanding’’ on the deal, and the task was now to translate that into a legal agreement. He said the US had assured New Delhi that it would not let its own domestic legislation, such as the Hyde Act, to come in the way of concluding the bilateral agreement.
Still, the stage seems to be set for a renewed schedule for talks. After the Germany meeting, Menon said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been invited to come to India, and both sides were working on dates for her visit in end-July-early August. That is likely to be followed by another high-level encounter when the PM visits the US in September.
Clearly, the ticklish issues that still confront both sides – on India’s right to conduct a nuclear test, on India’s right to reprocess spent fuel from safeguarded reactors and use it in unsafeguarded ones, and guarantees of fuel supplies – have still not been fully resolved.
But the presence of a representative of the Department of Atomic Energy, Rajiv Grover, at the high table on which Menon sat during the briefing, was clearly meant to dispel the impression that the DAE and other parts of the government, such as the ministry of External Affairs, was on the same side.
Meanwhile, on a parallel track, a series of unusual meetings today between the BJP leadership and the Prime Minister on the one hand, and the BJP and the Americans on the other, signalled a political momentum was in the offing to possibly sugar-coat the highly technical and complex nature of the deal.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, flanked by External Affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee and Home minister Shivraj Patil, this morning met senior BJP leaders L K Advani and Jaswant Singh, and although the main topic of discussion was to do with finding solutions to the escalating crisis in Rajasthan, sources said the sticky Indo-US nuclear deal was also discussed.
The sources said the BJP seemed to be veering around to supporting the government on signing the nuclear deal with the US, amounting to a political breakthrough. In that case, when the PM explained the Indian position in parliament, as well as the compromise that would ultimately be arrived at with the US, the opposition would not embarrass him about it, the sources said.
The main concern of the BJP leaders, the sources said, was that the UPA government did not sacrifice the sovereignty and the independence of India’s nuclear weapons programme.
On the other hand, America’s top diplomat Nicholas Burns, met Jaswant Singh this afternoon, then returned to Hyderabad House to carry forward the discussions with his counterpart, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shanker Menon.
Burns had also met BJP leader and former principal secretary to Vajpayee Brajesh Mishra on Thursday, thereby ensuring that the BJP was fully in the loop of what was being discussed with the UPA government.
’’ A meeting between the PM and Bush in Germany next week also may not result in a breakthrough because that meeting has been curtailed to a mere 20 minutes.
So it seems as if the Indo-US nuclear deal may drag on for another few months, certainly into August-September, when the PM is likely to make another trip to the US.
Still, some of the trickiest issues, to deal with India’s right to reprocess spent fuel from safeguarded reactors in unsafeguarded fast-breeder reactors, were also beginning to see the light. Indian officials said the US could be agreeable to giving this right to India, but would not give details of the give-and-take yet.
As for the ``right to return’’ clause in US law, which gave the Americans the right to take back the fuel, the equipment, etc, in case India conducted a test, it seems as if New Delhi will be willing to accept that in principle. However, the government feels that such a scenario will never come to pass, and is therefore willing to accept language that fudges the issue : While it accepts the right, it will not accept that the US exercises that right.
Sources involved in the talks also emphasized that there was going to be ``no scaling down’’ in the contours of the deal, that India was demanding the full course, and that any compromises would not barter any sovereign rights or fundamentally affect the nature of the country’s nuclear weapons programme.
ENDS
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