Bharat Rakshak

That is why I suggested a complete confidence motions be tabled.

Thank you for the CRE information.

Its a political statement and not techinical. Its interesting that minro flunkeys talk big statements from INC while the bigwigs embrace inscrutable silence.

Nuclear deal at end of road
Siddharth Varadarajan

Vienna: The Group of Six like-minded states are continuing to insist on a clear "cause and effect" link between a future Indian atomic test and the termination of nuclear supplies and will block approval of the United States proposal to allow commerce with India when the Nuclear Suppliers Group reconvenes here Friday.

The six countries holding out for tougher conditions to be written into the draft proposal granting India an exemption from the NSG's rules are Austria, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, the Netherlands and Switzerland. But the coalition is a shifting one and the six are getting support from other countries on some of the demands they are making. At the same time, the number of countries pushing for approval of the exemption has also grown, say diplomats. Under the 45-nation cartel's rules of consensus decision-making, howver, even one country has the right to block a decision.

A lengthy meeting between the U.S. and the G-6 ended inconclusively late on Thursday night with the latter refusing to accept any dilution of their demands. "There are still very different views on both sides. We made some progress on minor issues but on the principal questions, there has been no movement", a diplomat from one of the six countries told The Hindu. "I can't see any way to bridge the divide", he added. "Not unless a major shift in position [by India and the U.S.] occurs".

The single biggest obstacle is the demand of the six that the waiver for India be made strictly conditional on not violating the non-proliferation commitments it had made in order to get the waiver in the first place. The group of like-minded nations was not insisting on an explicit mention of nuclear testing, the diplomat said. "But we are giving this exemption on the basis of these commitments and if those commitments are no longer being observed, the basis for the exemption will no longer be there".


Automatic cut-off of supplies in the event of India abandoning its moratorium on nuclear testing "has been our absolute bottom line from the beginning," said the diplomat, "and there is no question of it being dropped". At the same time, he conceded that more than India, it was the "big supplier nations" like Russia and France that were opposing automaticity of termination. "We know the U.S. is committed to terminating supplies [if India tests] but we don't want to leave the decision within the NSG to each individual PG [participating government]".

The other big issue remaining is access to enrichment and reprocessing equipment and technology. The six want so-called sensitive nuclear technologies to be excluded from the purview of the waiver.

Noting that the six were receiving support from different countries on different issues, the diplomat described the position taken by China as "interesting". "After remaining silent all this time, the Chinese were quite active in the [plenary] room yesterday and not in a way that was helpful to the U.S. position [on the waiver]", he said.

Another diplomat from a smaller country backing the India waiver said the Americans had not been as energetic "in a sustained sort of way" as they might have been during and before the NSG sessions last month and this week. Asked for his assessment of the American role, the G-6 diplomat concurred, saying the U.S. "seems to have picked off all the easy targets from the list first and left the difficult countries for last".

Further progress on India waiver at NSG talks. PTI report from Vienna:

India's case for a clean and unconditional waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) got a boost on the second day of its discussions today after New Delhi's reaffirmation of its commitment to non-proliferation goals.

The statement of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi generated a "momentum" at the discussions in the 45-member nuclear cartel, which welcomed and praised it.

"This is a very significant statement which was discussed by the NSG members and praised and welcomed by those in attendance.


"So on this basis we believe a momentum has been generated in the discussions," US acting Under Secretary of State for Arms Control John Rood told reporters after the morning round of discussions on the second day of deliberations.

A few countries are still said to be having some questions, particularly on the issue of nuclear testing by India, when they put forth their expressions during the morning session on the second day of the NSG meeting. Efforts are still under way to assuage their concerns, diplomats said.

"We are pleased that there was a positive momentum in the discussions," Rood said before the lunch break.

The US official emphasised that his country remained committed to securing the exception for India and was optimistic on achieving the goal.

"We are both committed to achieving the objective and achieving consensus and are optimistic that we can achieve the goal," he said.

Devastating blow to nuclear deal









The cat is finally out of the bag. It is now official that the Bush and Manmohan Singh administrations have no common or agreed understanding on vital aspects of the Indo-U.S. deal for civilian nuclear cooperation. A detailed official Bush administration letter, dated January 16, 2008, which answered 45 political-technical questions submitted in October 2007 by Tom Lantos, the then chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, was considered so sensitive from an Indian political standpoint that the State Department ensured that it was kept secret even though it was not a classified document. The current chairman of the House Committee, Howard L. Berman, has chosen to make the text of the State Department’s answers public — because, his spokesperson explained, if the Nuclear Suppliers Group, meeting in Vienna, approved a revised U.S. proposal to exempt India from the requirement of full-scope safeguards as a condition of civilian nuclear exports, the 123 agreement would go to Congress, which naturally needed to be well informed. But so do India’s Parliament and people because the strategic stakes — and risks — are much higher for India.

What is clear is that in the official Washington view, there will be no ‘full civilian nuclear cooperation’; indeed the U.S. administration has specifically assured Congress that it has ruled out the transfer of reprocessing and enrichment equipment and technology to India. More importantly, Washington is blindingly clear that the whole arrangement will collapse should India conduct another nuclear explosive test — that is the red line India shall not cross. But post-termination, India will have no choice but to continue safeguards in perpetuity ‘without condition’ and, in any case, its countervailing measures (‘corrective measures,’ ‘reasonable operating requirements,’ and ‘strategic reserve’) lack definition and concreteness. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other high-level representatives of his government have repeatedly claimed that there is nothing in the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal that prevents India from conducting further nuclear explosive tests. Washington is clear that India cannot test the agreement and have it too. Specifically, “should India detonate a nuclear explosive device, the United States has the right to cease all nuclear cooperation with India immediately, including the supply of fuel, as well as to request the return of any items transferred from the United States, including fresh fuel.” The official Bush administration position, evidently known to the Indian government, is that the fuel supply assurances, under Article 5.6 of the 123 agreement, are “intended to guard against disruption of fuel supply to India that might occur through no fault of India’s own,” for example, on account of a trade war, market disruptions, or the failure of a company to fulfil a fuel supply contract. They are “not ... meant to insulate India against the consequences of a nuclear explosive test or a violation of non-proliferation commitments.” In this crucial respect, the 123 is of a piece with the Hyde Act — and the Manmohan Singh government’s claims and assurances go up in smoke.

All this assumes that US has fooled/forced MMS to go for this CRE charade. What if the current ruling dispensation is using the US bogey to actually do the CRE themselves for various reasons?

CRE= Cap, Rollback, Eliminate A policy goal of the US Admins for India since Jimmy Carter.

That is a very interesting Article in PhysicsToday:

The Chinese nuclear tests: 1964 - 1996: PDF

For one thing, the Chinese probably sought deterrence. An American awareness of Chinese nuclear capabilities should lead to a more cautious American military posture around Taiwan and in the Pacific Ocean. Or perhaps it was an intelligence gimmick. Chinese scientists often displayed the inner workings of their technical devices to American visitors just to see how they would react. A raised eyebrow or a sudden scowl could confirm or discount a year's work. Maybe Chinese nuclear technology was no longer top secret. With the coming of Deng Xiaoping's regime around 1980, the proliferation of nuclear technology into the third world had become state policy. Perhaps it was time to let the Americans have a look.

The tour next brought Stillman face-to-face with another of the mysterious visitors to New Mexico: the director of the Southwest Institute of Fluid Physics—a euphemism for the Chinese high explosives test facilities. That institute has access to nine test facilities: three outdoors in the hills well beyond Science City and six containment vessels—large steel spheres that contain the energy released by a few pounds of high explosive. The explosives are wrapped around heavy metals simulating uranium, and the vessels are sealed so as to recover the valuable and sometimes toxic metals involved in the experiment. Four large containment vessels were located in Science City and two smaller ones were housed indoors at the Institute of Applied Physics in Chengdu. All the test facilities were carefully instrumented to collect reams of data. The Chinese scientists were not simply conducting proof-of-principle tests; they wanted to understand the dynamics of nuclear pit implosions.

The Chinese scientists also understood the impact of thermal cycling on high explosives; they did not allow their nuclear weapons to remain exposed to sunlight for extended periods of time.

That led Stillman to raise a discussion of weapons security: "Do Chinese nuclear weapons contain design features or protective devices to preclude their unauthorized use?" The NINT director responded that terrorism was not a consideration in their nuclear weapons designs, that Chinese discipline precluded unauthorized use. At that time the Chinese weapons program relied on "politically reliable" guards, not electronics. The director did agree, however, that those safety and security policies needed to change. I suspect that such changes have since taken place.

They then revisited Science City, where Stillman learned far more than on his first trip there. For example, he was able to inspect the high-explosive test facilities. Adjacent to those test chambers were impressive flash x-ray machines, designed to illuminate implosions as they took place. Framing cameras nearby could operate at millions of frames per second. Pins within the imploding spheres delivered further data on implosion symmetry. The technology was state-of-the- art by any standard.

The VIPs attending the Stillman visit had flown in from Beijing. Most spoke excellent English, and it seemed like they all talked about their children's achievements in the US. Even the engineer responsible for drilling vertical test shafts at Lop Nur had worked in the US during World War II; by 1990 his children were all enrolled in America's top engineering schools. The midnight barbecue in the Chinese desert seemed much like a cookout in the hills above Los Alamos.

At the time of Stillman's visit, drilling rigs were at work on 2- to 2.5-m diameter holes for nuclear device emplacement. Drilling technology was archaic by US standards; the drillers were advancing through the underlying granite at a rate of only two meters per day.

High time the videsh karyalai mantri came out with that. I guess Pages 2-5 of the statement got left out - those with the contradictory instructions like:
1. Applicants are instructed to send 3 (four) photographs of 2.5375cm x 3.2954cm in triplicate.
2. For return of passport enclose self-addressed envelope with US post office money order for return postage by Federal Express.
......

The main problem is that the articulation of detailed policy is left to the papparazzi and the NPAs. This statement is excellent. Of course it reads like a meek surrender of the Unconditional Right To Commit Immediate National Suicide...

VIENNA (Reuters) - Forty-five countries considering lifting a ban on nuclear trade with India welcomed an Indian pledge on Friday to honour non-proliferation pacts it has not signed, but some felt it did not go far enough, diplomats said.

At stake is the survival of a controversial U.S.-India nuclear cooperation deal, a major initiative of President George W. Bush's administration which risks an uncertain fate if left to his successor.

For the deal to go ahead, Washington and New Delhi need the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to grant a one-off waiver of its ban on nuclear trade with India, an atomic weapons state outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which tested bombs in 1974 and 1998.

Pushing for the waiver, India said it rejected any nuclear arms race and reaffirmed a voluntary moratorium on tests.

An Indian Foreign Ministry statement also said India endorsed strict NSG rules against the spread of nuclear weapons, backed global nuclear disarmament objectives and aimed to institute broader U.N. inspections of its nuclear facilities.

If Washington cannot secure an NSG exemption within days, the U.S. Congress may run out of time to ratify the deal before it adjourns at the end of September for elections, relegating the matter to an uncertain fate under a new president.

Decisions by the nuclear export cartel must be unanimous.

STRATEGIC PACT

Washington says the nuclear cooperation deal with New Delhi would forge a strategic partnership with the world's largest democracy, help India meet exploding energy demand in an environmentally friendly way and open a nuclear market worth billions of dollars for Western firms.

NSG states praised New Delhi's gesture on Friday as an important, timely step forward, diplomats said. John Rood, acting U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said it had added "positive momentum".

"On (that) basis the United States remains committed to the objective of achieving consensus and optimistic about achieving that goal," Rood told reporters. He declined to take questions.

But some diplomats and analysts noted India's statement repeated known positions and did not fully allay fears for the integrity of the NPT.

NSG critics fear India could use access to nuclear material markets indirectly to boost its bomb programme and drive nuclear rival and fellow NPT outsider Pakistan into another arms race.

"Voluntary declarations do not have the same value as a (binding) NSG text," one diplomat said.

But others said later a bloc of six holdouts demanding a clause stipulating an automatic cessation of the waiver if India tested another weapon had been cut to four after Norway and Netherlands agreed to less precise language.

Only Ireland, Austria and New Zealand were sticking to a tough line on testing, they said. Whether Switzerland's stance had changed was not immediately clear.

The diplomat said the general consensus among U.S. and other diplomats was that "the three will come on board at some point". But China caused an additional complication when its delegation announced it needed to break and return to Beijing.

The diplomat said Washington wanted "to keep pushing along, using the clock as an ally to turn the three hold-outs, so the Chinese comment is problematic."

So how can anyone say this is not clean and unconditional waving?

"Keep at a safe distance" in relations with unkil

Words on this can cut both ways. And most likely come back to haunt, in this context.

Nuclear deal staring at NSG dead-end

Siddharth Varadarajan

Vienna: With the Group of Six like-minded states continuing to insist on a clear “cause and effect” link between a future Indian atomic test and the termination of nuclear supplies, the Nuclear Suppliers Group was all set to remain deadlocked over the United States proposal to allow nuclear commerce with India.

At the time of going to press, the NSG plenary had slipped into its third recess of the day in order to enable further consultations between the U.S. and the six hold-outs.

The six countries holding out for tougher conditions to be written into the draft proposal granting India an exemption from the NSG’s rules are Austria, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, the Netherlands and Switzerland. But the coalition is a shifting one and the six are getting support from other countries on some of the demands they are making. At the same time, the number of countries pushing for approval of the exemption has also grown, say diplomats. Under the 45-nation cartel’s rules of consensus decision-making, however, even one country has the right to block a decision.

A lengthy meeting between the U.S. and the G-6 ended inconclusively late on Thursday night with the latter refusing to accept any dilution of their demands. “There are still very different views on both sides. We made some progress on minor issues but on the principal questions, there has been no movement,” a diplomat from one of the six countries told The Hindu. “I can’t see any way to bridge the divide,” he added. “Not unless a major shift in position [by India and the U.S.] occurs.”

The statement by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee reiterating India’s disarmament commitments and its unilateral, voluntary moratorium was warmly welcomed by most NSG members but failed to break the deadlock. “We welcome it but it is not enough to resolve the outstanding difficulties with the main text [of the waiver],” said a diplomat from a G-6 country.

“Voluntary declarations do not have the same value as agreed NSG text,” he added.

The single biggest obstacle is the demand of the six that the waiver for India be made strictly conditional on not violating the non-proliferation commitments it had made in order to get the waiver in the first place. The group of like-minded nations was not insisting on an explicit mention of nuclear testing, the diplomat said. “But we are giving this exemption on the basis of these commitments and if those commitments are no longer being observed, the basis for the exemption will no longer be there.”

Automatic cut-off of supplies in the event of India abandoning its moratorium on nuclear testing “has been our absolute bottom line from the beginning” said the diplomat, “and there is no question of it being dropped.” At the same time, he conceded that more than India, it was the “big supplier nations” like Russia and France that were opposing automaticity of termination. “We know the U.S. is committed to terminating supplies [if India tests] but we don’t want to leave the decision within the NSG to each individual PG [participating government].”

The other big issue remaining is access to enrichment and reprocessing equipment and technology. The six want so-called sensitive nuclear technologies to be excluded from the purview of the waiver.
China’s position

Noting that the six were receiving support from different countries on different issues, the diplomat described the position taken by China as “interesting.” “After remaining silent all this time, the Chinese were quite active in the [plenary] room yesterday [Thursday] and not in a way that was helpful to the U.S. position [on the waiver],” he said.

Another diplomat from a smaller country backing the India waiver said the Americans had not been as energetic “in a sustained sort of way” as they might have been during and before the NSG sessions last month and this week.

Asked for his assessment of the American role, the G-6 diplomat concurred, saying the U.S. “seems to have picked off all the easy targets from the list first and left the difficult countries for last.”

On its part, the Indian delegation here acknowledged the going was tough to impossible. “If there is no agreement [Friday], I don’t see much scope for this going into another round.” “We are not talking about a third meeting. I don’t think anybody is, because if it can’t be done now, it can’t be done then,” official sources told The Hindu.

A joke circulating in Paris early in 1919 held that the peacemaking Council of Four, representing Britain, France, the U.S. and Italy, was busy preparing a "just and lasting war." Six months of parleying concluded on June 28 with Germany's coerced agreement to a treaty no Allied statesman had fully read, according to MacMillan, a history professor at the University of Toronto

India is doing both today - building nukes and circulating non-proliferation plans in the UN. So, how can it come to haunt?

Besides it is the GoIs job to make sure that it does not come back to haunt

What will come back to haunt is the lack of transparency - the Hindu editorial is an example, where people expect what a PM states only to realize that he is either duping or being duped.

India has changed but unkil has not changed his vision, only tatctics.

Remember what CIA chief said after 1998 Shakthi series, We have not been paying attention to India, it will change, after the company was on recruiting spree, with 9-11 everything fell in place to pursue even more vigoursly....