Is climate change just so much hot air? PM still meets Bush

JYOTI MALHOTRA

Berlin, June 6, 2007 : Whether or not climate change is just so much hot air will be up to the developed world as its leaders meet for their annual G-8 jamboree at the Heilingendam resort near here in less than 48 hours.

As for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he knows that a mere 15-20 minute meeting on the margins of the G-8 with US president George Bush, could make the difference between sweet success and bitter failure for the UPA government.

So when Singh meets Bush, he will ask him to ``take a political call’’ on the two remaining issues that are still holding up the bilateral nuclear deal : India’s right to reprocess spent fuel, as well as immunity for a strategic fuel reserve, even if ``unforeseen circumstances’’ affect the nature of the bilateral relationship in the future.

Shorn of the jargon, the implication is that even if India conducts a nuclear test, the US should give a commitment that it will not cut off fuel supplies for the 14 civilian nuclear reactors that New Delhi has committed to put under safeguards.

After last week’s talks between Foreign Secretary Shivshanker Menon and top US diplomat Nicholas Burns, these were the two issues that emerged as the key stumbling blocks.

New Delhi hopes the quick Heilingendam ``pull aside’’ will be long enough for the PM to persuade Bush that he can trust India.

In fact, when Manmohan Singh met Burns during a courtesy call last week, he is believed to have told him that India would do everything it could to keep its side of the bargain. However, since he had told Parliament that India would do nothing that limits its independence of action, the US would have to trust India on these two issues.

This question of trust is really the crux of the matter. The US believes that if India gets the right to reprocess – which only a handful of countries like Japan and Switzerland have got, with huge conditions attached – it could use the plutonium to make crude bombs.

New Delhi has been telling the US that India will do no such thing. The PM is expected to underline this during his meeting with Bush.

As for immunity for the strategic fuel reserve, New Delhi also knows that under US law if it conducts a test, not only will all assistance cease immediately, but the ``right to return’’ clause will automatically kick in.
Officials say India will accept the ``right to return clause’’, however only if it is guaranteed immunity for its fuel reserve.

The right to reprocess spent fuel in Indian reprocessing facilities, Indian officials say, is a right they will not relinquish, because it establishes a certain independence of action. Proposals have, meanwhile, been flying thick and fast between the two sides.

So far, all that officials were willing to say was that this reprocessing facility would also be put under international safeguards.

New Delhi believes that this right is part of the July 18, 2005 agreement with the US, and that the US cannot renege on given commitments.

At the time too, it was Bush who decided that India, as a rising power, should become a friend, thereby giving the final go-ahead to the agreement. And last year in March when negotiators on both sides talked for most of the night between March 1-2 (Bush arrived late evening on March 1,and the next morning the agreement was signed), India offered to put the fuel for the civilian reactors under safeguards.

ENDS