The Economic Times
India, US put nuclear deal on fast track 24 Jul, 2008, 0346 hrs IST, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: Putting the nuclear deal negotiations on the fast track the US said it was planning to seek a meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in the second week of August and send the nuclear deal to the US Congress by early September. This comes a day after Mr Manmohan Singh removed the domestic political hurdles to the deal.
With the UPA government surviving the trust vote, both India and the US are now working furiously to meet these tight deadlines. The main focus on both sides is to win over the handful of NSG countries which are still uncomfortable about allowing India into the nuclear mainstream. These countries, including Ireland, New Zealand and Sweden, will now be the target of diplomatic initiatives by the US and India.
The strategy is to call a NSG meeting immediately after the meeting of IAEA board of governors on August 1. The US doe not see any problems at the IAEA stage and expects the governors, including Pakistan, to give the approval. US ambassador David Mulford said the Bush administration would talk to Pakistan, which has been trying to block India's civilian nuclear aspirations. He further hoped that Pakistan would "see things in the right light".
But it is the NSG stage that has both US and India concerned. "Our hope is that following the IAEA meeting, we would like the NSG meeting to take place within a week to 10 days. We feel that it is important to immediately address whatever concerns there are and if necessary have a second NSG meeting," said Mr Mulford. The assessment at this stage is that it will take time to convince all the NSG members to support a waiver for India. But the US is determined to complete the NSG step in August. "...So we'll have enough time to be in a position to give the legislation on the very first days of the US Congress in September," said Mr Mulford.
Due to the tight political timeline both Indian and the US governments immediately cranked up their diplomatic efforts as soon as the UPA government won the trust vote in Parliament. Prime Minister's special envoy Shyam Saran was on a flight late on Tuesday evening to Ireland, which is one of the countries that has expressed strong reservation about the nuclear deal. Minister of state for external affairs Anand Sharma is in Singapore for East Asia foreign ministers meeting. Mr Sharma is holding bilateral meeting with foreign ministers of Australia and Canada and is likely to seek their support within the NSG.
Foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon is likely to travel to the US, while minister of state, PMO, Prithviraj Chauhan, is likely to travel to Portugal, Italy and Spain. Science and technology minister Kapil Sibal is likely to travel to the Nordic countries, which have strong non-proliferation concerns.
At this point India's efforts are supplementing the US initiatives. US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice will be traveling this week to Australia and New Zealand where she will seek support for an exemption from the two countries which have also expressed reservations about the deal. Mr Mulford, who participated in a coordination committee meeting in Washington to discuss the strategy on Tuesday, further said that the US is looking at a "clean" exemption without any conditions from the NSG.
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