[aspirant2007]

New Delhi, Feb 18 (PTI) In a veiled message to Left parties, Prime Minister's Special Envoy Shyam Saran today said India would not be able to have civil nuclear trade with the international community without the US taking the "lead on our behalf".
Saran, while underlining that the Indo-US civil nuclear deal had nothing that would impact India's military programme, said "frankly, I do not think that we could have secured any better safeguards for our interests" in the deal.

"While there has been intense focus on the Indo-US bilateral agreement, much of the commentary on the subject has lost sight of the multilateral regime whose adjustment in favour of India is what we are aiming at," he said delivering a lecture on 'India and the Nuclear Domain' organised by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).

"Our objective is to enable India to have a wide choice of partners in pursuing nuclear commerce and high technology trade. But we cannot attain this objective without the US taking the lead on our behalf," he said.

Noting that Russia and France are friendly to India and extremely keen to engage in nuclear commerce with it, Saran said "however, there should be no doubt that neither they nor others will make an exception for India unilaterally unless the Nuclear Suppliers Group adjusts its guidelines in the same manner as the US is prepared to do." Apparently talking about opposition by Left parties to the growing ties with Washington, the Prime Minister's envoy said "whatever be the reservations that have been expressed about our relations with the US, no other friendly country, member of the NSG has the necessary standing to lead the process of opening up the existing multilateral regime to accommodate India." PTI

[Sreekar]

Clock is ticking on nuclear deal: US
(source:www.TimesofIndia.com)

Pressing for early conclusion of the civil nuclear deal, the US on Wednesday said "the clock is ticking" and hoped the UPA government would be able to end the domestic deadlock on the issue in time.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who held wide-ranging talks with Defence Minister A K Antony in new Delhi, said the nuclear agreement has "positive global consequences" besides serving the interests of both the countries.

"The clock is ticking in terms of how much time is available to get all the different aspects of an agreement implemented," Gates told reporters.

He did not specify any time period during which India needed to take the steps like firming up the IAEA safeguards and seeking waiver from Nuclear Suppliers Group, though Washington has been insisting that these be concluded by July.

Without directly mentioning the stiff opposition by Left parties to make the nuclear deal effective, Gates said the US respects India's internal politics and hopes that the government would resolve the issue in time.

He, however, was quick to add that failure of the nuclear deal would have little impact on the deepening military ties.

The US Defence Secretary met senior BJP leader L K Advani, whose party is also opposing the deal, in an apparent bid to seek his support.

During his two-day stay in India, Gates also met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

-Thanks much,
Sreekar

[Sreekar]

Burns preaches 'courageous decision' on N-deal
(source:The Times of India: No 1 site for Breaking news, views, reviews, cricket, business, lifestyle, sports)

The chief US negotiator of a nuclear agreement with India said it will be impossible to complete this year unless India quickly makes a 'courageous decision' to endorse it.

President George W Bush, who leaves office next January, considers the pact a major accomplishment of his administration.

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said on Thursday that a dispute within the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's governing coalition is hurting an agreement that benefits both nations.

"I'm afraid it's time for the government to decide. We hope the decision will be positive," said Burns, who is retiring from the State Department next week. "If India is to be given this great victory, which is so clearly in the Indian national interest, there has to be a courageous decision made by the government."

Burns headed the US negotiating team that agreed after 2 1/2 years on the final US-Indian document that would give India access to US civilian nuclear technology and fuel. In exchange India would provide safeguards and allow international inspections at its 14 civilian nuclear installations. Eight self-designated military plants would remain off-limits. The US Congress has given its preliminary approval to the deal.

"I think the Indian government is quite sincere in wanting to push this agreement forward," Burns said.

He said, however, that "there's obviously a question of politics within the Indian coalition, and we don't want to interfere in internal affairs of the coalition in India."

Nevertheless, he said recent American visitors to India, including Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Defence Secretary Robert Gates had told their hosts that "time is very short."

Even with India's endorsement, the two countries still must obtain an exception for India from the rules of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, countries that export nuclear material.

-Thanks much,
Sreekar

[Sreekar]

China will back US-India nuke deal: Burns
(source:The Times of India: No 1 site for Breaking news, views, reviews, cricket, business, lifestyle, sports)

China will back India's US-sponsored promotion to the international nuclear elite, breaking New Delhi's three-decade long isolation from the world nuclear trade, Nicholas Burns, the American pointman for the nuclear deal, promised on Friday shortly before he bowed out of office with the issue still up in air.

In an interview from Washington in his last hours as the US Undersecretary of State, Burns, who is leaving the Bush administration to join the private sector, told TOI that the deal would go forward at the Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting "with a great deal of support" once the Indian government clinched the safeguards agreement with the IAEA.

Central to Washington's optimism is the backing for the deal from Russia, UK, France and China, who Burns described as votaries of the US-India nuclear agreement. Asked if this meant that Beijing had come around and firmly committed support to the deal, Burns said he would rather let the Chinese government speak for itself but he didn't think China would block the deal. "It is our firm impression that China will support..." he said.

The US public iteration of Beijing's support, which follows visits to China by the top Indian leadership, is clearly aimed at the Left, which shows no sign of relenting in its opposition to the deal. In a separate press briefing on Friday, Burns called on the UPA government to take a bold and courageous decision on the nuclear deal.

Asked if he was egging the government to defy its limited mandate and risk precipitating an early election by pushing ahead with the deal, Burns said the last thing he wished was to get into the internal political process in India and the US was keen to let it resolve matters itself, as they usually happened in sophisticated democracies.

"But there is a calendar, and there is a clock ticking. There is no escaping that," he added.

Although February 29 was his last day with the State Department, ending a stellar diplomatic career, Burns said he would continue to the Bush administration's point person for nuclear deal till April 30 on a request from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The arrangement offers a broad timeline of how long Washington is willing to wait for New Delhi to clinch the safeguards agreement with the IAEA.

Burns said in his view the IAEA safeguards process is "relatively simple and short...and it can be concluded rapidly should the Indian government wishes to." However, his sense was that the hold-up was related to the domestic political situation.

Both US lawmakers and the State Department have concluded that India will have to get the deal past the IAEA and the NSG by May or June so that it can be voted one last time in the Congress no later than July.

Asked what would happen if the deal did not go through given the largely karmic attitude prevalent in India, Burns said it will be a "great missed opportunity...probably the single biggest opportunity in the last 35 years."

"It will be a great loss for both countries because it is an important moment when the world has recognized India as a major rising world power - the US more than others. We have defied 30 years of conventional wisdom and overturned the way we work with India and this must not be wasted," he said.

Burns, who has been the US lead negotiator and pointperson for the deal, described the talks that accompanied it as a marathon that was one of the most complex diplomatic assignments of his career. The negotiations lasted near three years, took him to India eight times, and involved talks with Indian officials in Washington DC, New Delhi, New York, London, Madrid, and Paris among other cities.

"It has been quite an odyssey," he sighed, hoping that he could bow out knowing the deal would be concluded.

Burns is a career foreign service official frequently described as one of the most brilliant diplomats to come out of the State Department cadre. While it is not unusual for such officials to return to the diplomatic corps post-retirement (as it happened with Tom Pickering) Burns indicated he expected to be with the private sector for some length of time, given his family commitments.

-Thanks much,
Sreekar

[Sreekar]

“Hyde Act will hurt sovereignty”
(source:The Hindu : Front Page News : Tuesday, March 04, 2008)

The Left parties on Monday warned the UPA government not to operationalise the India-U.S. civilian nuclear deal and disagreed with the government assertion that the provisions of the controversial Hyde Act would not affect India.

At a press conference, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury said the party did not agree with the government’s view and felt that the Hyde Act would severely compromise India’s independent foreign policy and sovereignty.

“We don’t agree with the government that the Hyde Act’s implications do not exist for India. ... We don’t think that the government should proceed to operationalise the deal,” Mr. Yechury said here.
Reacting to the statement of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the Lok Sabha earlier in the day, Mr. Yechury said though Hyde Act was an enabling provision, the U.S. legislature had given a waiver to President George Bush to enter into civil nuclear cooperation with India “under conditions listed in the Act.” The Polit Bureau in a statement cautioned the government that there was no “political consensus” on the nuclear deal and advised it not to proceed further with the agreement.

“It is ironical that the statement to Parliament says that the government will continue to ‘seek’ a broad political consensus within the country. The government should first respect the majority opinion expressed by Parliament when the 123 agreement was discussed in the winter session of 2007. The government should acknowledge that its stand on the nuclear deal does not have the support of Parliament. There is no political consensus and hence it should not proceed further with the agreement,” the Polit Bureau said.

Dwelling on the Hyde Act, the Polit Bureau said that “it has become a practice for the Indian government to reiterate that the Hyde Act has no relevance for India and it is not applicable to us. No one else believes this to be so. Neither the Hyde Act nor the 123 agreement which has been drafted within the framework of the Hyde Act provisions meet the assurances given by the Prime Minister in his August 2006 statement to Parliament.”

In the same vein, CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta said: “If the government proceeds in the direction of finalising the deal, we will be free to decide our own course of action and the course is known to the government.”

-Thanks much,
Sreekar

[Sreekar]

Govt fighting hard to meet N-deal deadline

(source:The Times of India: No 1 site for Breaking news, views, reviews, cricket, business, lifestyle, sports)

The ides of March may be India's internal deadline for completing the IAEA safeguards agreement on its civilian nuclear facilities.

This has reportedly been decided by the government, after the MEA-DAE team returned from Vienna on Sunday with what appears to be the final draft of the agreement.

The government's legal brains will now go through the agreement to see if India can "live with" it. This exercise, sources said, should be completed by the middle of this month.

The completed Indian safeguards agreement is expected to dovetail into foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee's maiden visit (as foreign minister) to Washington on March 23-25, where he is expected to present this to his counterpart Condoleezza Rice.

Politically, sources said, it would make sense for Mukherjee to go to Washington with a concrete document in hand, rather than open himself up to a host of diplomatic harangue.

Sources indicated that the crucial UPA-Left meeting will probably be scheduled after his return and after the CPM's party congress scheduled for March 29. This remains the imponderable because it's not yet clear whether the government will take the agreement beyond the Left's veto - which is a given.

In fact, pre-empting the expected criticism of Rice's statement, Mukherjee stated in Parliament on Monday, "The Hyde Act is an enabling provision that is between the executive and legislative organs of the US government. India's rights and obligations regarding civil nuclear cooperation with the US arise only from the bilateral 123 agreement."

What is not clear is how the government plans to go ahead with the deal if the Left withdraws support and it is reduced to a minority.

Mukherjee had earlier said that other countries would not like to conclude a nuclear agreement with a minority government. This circle has not been squared. Mukherjee gave a spirited defence of the nuclear deal. "The conclusion of the safeguards agreement will enable the Nuclear Suppliers Group to amend its guidelines for civil nuclear commerce with India," he said.

Consistent with the government's policy of spreading the goodies around in the nuclear sector to make it more palatable to the Left, Mukherjee said, "This (the deal) will open the door to civil nuclear cooperation with various countries including Russia, US, France and UK with whom the necessary enabling bilateral agreements for such trade have been discussed and are in various stages of finalisation."

-Thanks much,
Sreekar

[chanda_s]

whats the guess of the members on this? would the nuclear deal be through or not?

[sivaharimani]

well work sreeker,
with Prlims urge, i am not able to give a detailed account on it, but I give in a couple of sentences

"Nuclear Deal is like a Big Elephant of strong and long Ivory which is going to help to lift the burden of Growth of Indian Economy that is being sculptured into a Cat on the wall to execute the deal by the sculpturers(both parties and personalities) by their whims and fancies"

[Sreekar]

Hi Chanda Sir,
After closely watching the recent events within the UPA government and also the enthusiam shown by both the Indian and US governments, I personally feel that the nuclear deal with US will go through only if the following items are met in time:

1) First and foremost, India and US should finetune the Nuclear draft (which is also known as N-draft), before going to the Nuclear Suppliers Group ( N-draft is the document the US will take it to the NSG for a "clean" exemption that India is looking for in this deal).

2) Next step would be for India to wrap up the safeguards pact with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as soon as possible so that the deal can be ratified by the US Congress before July-end. For sure, it would not be an easy task for India in the US Congress and as well as at the NSG which consists of 45 member group.

3) Last but not the least, it all depends on how the left allies react to the draft finalised with IAEA during the UPA-Left coordination committee meeting on the deal and how the situation unfolds.

I hope that we will have a more clear picture in few weeks when Mr. Pranab Mukherjee meets his counterpart Condoleezza Rice.

-Thanks much,
Sreekar

[Sreekar]

Hyde Act can't be ignored: Boucher
(source:The Times of India: No 1 site for Breaking news, views, reviews, cricket, business, lifestyle, sports)

Even as a visiting US official said the "domestic" legislation (Hyde Act) would have to be taken into account in operationalizing the nuclear deal with India, Left parties said they expected to be called in by the UPA government for a briefing on the safeguards agreement before foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee travelled to the US later this month.

However, Left leaders said they were yet to be formally told about the agreement or a meeting with UPA representatives. "The Hyde Act is a domestic legislation (and) the 123 agreement is an international agreement. I think we can move forward with both in a consistent manner," US assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher said here on Tuesday. Boucher is on a two-day visit, which is expected to be dominated by the nuclear deal.

On Monday, Mukherjee told Parliament, "The Hyde Act is an enabling provision that is between the executive and the legislative organs of the US government. India's rights and obligations regarding civil nuclear cooperation arise only from the bilateral 123 agreement."

Boucher, who discussed the deal with foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, made the comment when asked whether the Hyde Act would have any bearing on the nuclear cooperation. Actually, both Boucher and Mukherjee are right. For the US, the 123 pact makes no sense without the waiver that is the soul of the Hyde Act. Mukherjee is right because India's obligations are not part of Hyde Act, but the 123 pact. But the government has allowed the Hyde Act, which cannot be wished away, to be demonized because of its prescriptive provisions. It has led to the Opposition training its guns on the Act itself, rather than on the specific clauses.

The concerns were heightened after US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said that changes in the NSG guidelines, required by India for nuclear commerce with the international community, will have to be "completely consistent with the obligations of Hyde Act".

-Thanks much,
Sreekar