Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Deal and Power - ONLY Articles

ShibaPJ
BRFite
Posts: 146
Joined: 20 Oct 2005 21:21

Post by ShibaPJ »

India could have gone nuclear in '65 with US nod

US sees China quietly working to halt N-deal
Besides the content of the deal, even the context is troubling China, which means it is also working against the "quadrilateral". However, a lot of these efforts have had mixed results. Diplomatic sources in Washington said China was not using its registered lobbyists against the deal. "It's all very subtle and very clever," a Washington source said.

Instead, China is working on a huge pool of corporate sources to send a clear message to Capitol Hill — that while India may be a "potential" market, China is a proven one, cautioning them against putting US eggs in the Indian basket.
...
In Washington's over-active think-tank circuit, a lot of Chinese effort has gone into churning out comments and opinions that are taking a line against the deal by saying that it is undermining the non-proliferation regime. This is the official Chinese line on the nuclear deal, and a response that has been made clear to the Indian government at various levels.

"A lot of Chinese disquiet is driven by the fact that they never really expected the deal to go through," said an Indian official connected with the deal.
...
A second message that Washington sources clearly trace back to the Chinese is that if the US goes ahead with the India deal, China might be compelled to offer something to Pakistan. Diplomatic sources tracking China say it is not going to be able to do such a thing but it stirs up all kinds of nightmares in the minds of Washington's non-proliferation ayatollahs.

However, declassified US documents suggesting that China was engaged in massive nuclear proliferation with Algeria in 1991 has not exactly helped China's case in Washington. In the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), China has found many discontents among India's traditional NAM group, who have registered "reservations" on the nuclear deal.

There are countries who would do anything to get a similar deal. This is the group, say Indian sources, who are being prompted to make a demand for a "criteria-based" exemption rather than a single country exemption for India.
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Post by ramana »

US asks India to come clean on ties with Iran

US asks India to come clean on ties with Iran

PTI | Washington/New Delhi

Posted online: September 19, 2007

The US has asked India to come clean on its military ties with Iran but New Delhi played down its concerns asserting that friendly relations with one country will not affect ties with others.

In remarks that has raised the hackles of the Left on the back of the growing rift between the UPA and the Communist allies on the India-US civil nuclear deal, the US has said that the onus is on New Delhi to explain its military relationship with Tehran.

The US's position on India-Iranian ties was spelt out by Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Richard Boucher when asked to comment on apprehensions voiced by senior US lawmakers on India's military relations with Iran.

"I think that some of the fears are exaggerated. Some of the training it turns out to be cadet level; some of the exchanges don't lead to a lot...".

"But I think, it's more on the Indian side to try to explain exactly what is and what is not going on in its relations with Iran, as we are upfront in our relations with other countries like India," Boucher said at a meeting organised by the United States-India Business Alliance here.

"I'm sure India can explain it better than we can what their relationships are and are not..." ,he said, adding that New Delhi had made it clear that it was not interested in seeing the emergence of another nuclear power in that neighbourhood.

"The Indian Government is very well aware of the concerns of India's military relationship with Iran. What we are trying to do is for everybody to understand the facts of the matter," Boucher added.

Boucher's remarks saw India Government and its Left allies united with Defence Minister defending India-Iranian ties and the CPI saying the US has no business to tell India "what it should do and what it should not do."
satya
BRFite
Posts: 718
Joined: 19 Jan 2005 03:09

Nuclear Deal : You Win Some and Lose Some ...........

Post by satya »

http://www.saag.org/papers24/paper2382.html
There is the other question of India’s thorium cycle with fast breeder nuclear reactors (a prototype is already under consideration). India has an abundance of thorium while deficient in uranium. India’s thorium cycle is in an advanced stage and may take another five to ten years to complete. This has been acknowledged by the IAEA. The energy production efficiency of the thorium cycle with uranium 233 is far higher than the uranium cycle. Once this is achieved India is expected to be the EI Dorado of nuclear energy, along with fissile material for nuclear weapons.
The Israeli lobby is reported to be the strongest. The Chinese are, however, not far behind. They have a group known as the “Committee of Hundred.â€
svinayak
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14223
Joined: 09 Feb 1999 12:31

Post by svinayak »

ShibaPJ wrote:India could have gone nuclear in '65 with US nod

India could have gone nuclear in '65 with US nod
19 Sep 2007, 0001 hrs IST,Gautam Siddharth,TNN
Print Save EMail Write to Editor
NEW DELHI: Had Washington given a green signal to New Delhi in February 1965, India would have been able to conduct a "dramatic peaceful achievement" - a euphemism for nuclear test as, indeed, how it was described with Pokhran 1 - well within a year of Chinese nuclear blast at Lop Nor in 1964.

According to declassified US State Department "memorandum of conversation" dated February 22, 1965, between US undersecretary of state George W Ball and India's secretary of Department of Nuclear Enegry Homi J Bhabha, the Indian scientist had explicitly told the American official that "if India went all out, it could produce a nuclear device in 18 months, and with a US blueprint it could do the job in six months".

The memorandum, along with reams of other documents, has been reproduced and released for public for the first time in the book 'India and the United States: Politics of the Sixties' by senior journalist Kalyani Shankar.

While the stated US reason for not supporting India's nuclear test was that America was trying to ensure that all the major non-nuclear countries renounced nuclear weapons, the subtext from several other declassified letters, memorandums and reports of US Directorate of Intelligence, CIA and then American ambassador in Delhi Chester Bowles' letters to US officials in Washington reveal that it was India's inheritance of the non-aligned worldview from Nehru and Delhi’s refusal to support the US in several key international situations through the 1960s that queered the pitch for fostering the sort of understanding that's being attempted today, more than 40 years later.

In one of her letters to President Lyndon B Johnson (dated May 12, 1966), Indira Gandhi describes the extent of hostile opposition she faced, writing in one place, "My critics have chosen the Indo-US foundation as the springboard for a personal attack on me, even though the basic idea had been agreed long before I came to office."
Kakkaji
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3866
Joined: 23 Oct 2002 11:31

Post by Kakkaji »

Small steps to N-finish line
New Delhi, Sept. 19: India and the US are taking small, determined steps — in Delhi, Vienna and in the US next week — that seem to be taking the nuclear deal to its logical conclusion.
Manny
BRFite
Posts: 859
Joined: 07 Apr 2006 22:16
Location: Texas

Post by Manny »

Ignoring Lefties, govt marches ahead on N-deal

NEW DELHI: Despite the Left parties' veto, the UPA government is waking up from its Left-induced stupor on the nuclear deal, working in concert with the US to take the agreement past the finishing line.

As a first step, US ambassador David Mulford met Shyam Saran, the PM's special envoy on the nuclear deal, on Wednesday afternoon.

Later in the day, Mulford headed for Washington to calibrate the next steps on the deal. In Vienna, the US called a meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) to discuss the deal amid indications that IAEA's technical team has given an initial draft of a safeguards agreement for the Indian side to work on.

Clearly, after a month of twiddling thumbs, the word is out in the government — let's get cracking.
Tilak
BRFite
Posts: 733
Joined: 31 Jul 2005 20:19
Location: Old Lal Masjid @BRFATA (*Renovation*)

Post by Tilak »

We’ll get back, India tells IAEA
Amit Baruah and Sutirtho Patranobis
Hindustan Times
Last Updated: 03:09 IST(20/9/2007)
NRao
BRF Oldie
Posts: 19224
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: Illini Nation

Post by NRao »

US tells India to explain Iran ties

[quote]
New Delhi, Sept. 19: The US assistant secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Mr Richard Boucher, has confirmed that the 123 Agreement “is in full conformity with the Hyde Actâ€
sunilUpa
BRFite
Posts: 1795
Joined: 25 Sep 2006 04:16

Post by sunilUpa »

US wants to seal N-deal with India by year-end: Stratford
VIENNA: The US, which is to brief the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on the civil nuclear deal with India, wants to seal the agreement by the end of this year, a senior American official said here on Thursday.
"The US wants to meet the entire pre-requisites of the operationalisation of the deal by the end of this year," Richard J K Stratford, Director at the Office of Nuclear Energy Affairs in the US State Department, told a news agency.
He said the US will try to impress upon the NSG member nations the need for clean and unconditional exemption sought by India for nuclear trade under the Indo-US civil nuclear deal.

A closed-door meeting of the NSG has been convened by the US on the sidelines of the 51st General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) here.

"I will explain to the members how both India and the US arrived at the agreement and also put forth the conditions asked by India for a clean, unconditional exemption (from NSG rules to enable nuclear commerce)," said Stratford, who is the Head of the US delegation to the NSG.

He admitted that it could be a tough job. "But we will try to do it, and I am optimistic."
"We are also going to tell about the safeguards issues which India has to sort out with the IAEA," Stratford said.

Meanwhile, when asked what would India do if the NSG countries did not agree on change in its guidelines to allow international trade with New Delhi, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar said "we have our own programme. It will continue. The civilian cooperation with US is only an additionality for a near-term requirement."
ShibaPJ
BRFite
Posts: 146
Joined: 20 Oct 2005 21:21

Post by ShibaPJ »

Nuclear Deal : You Win Some and Lose Some but Watch out for those Trying to Fish in troubled Waters

Getting into a peaceful nuclear energy deal with the United States is not something new or sudden. It has been a continuous progression. The NDA had entered into discussions with the USA and the UPA government is about to conclude it. The problem with such complex deals is that they start with nice statements and as consultations progress, one party or both try to maximise its gains.

It is true that following the US sanctions on the Tarapore Nuclear Power Plant after Pokhran-I in 1974, the Indian nuclear scientists did well to prove to the world that they could take forward the country’s nuclear programme indigenously. With Pokhran-II in May 1998, they left no one in doubt about their ability. Most of the world came down on India like an avalanche. The die had been cast, but the snow eventually melted considerably.

There is the other question of India’s thorium cycle with fast breeder nuclear reactors (a prototype is already under consideration). India has an abundance of thorium while deficient in uranium. India’s thorium cycle is in an advanced stage and may take another five to ten years to complete. This has been acknowledged by the IAEA. The energy production efficiency of the thorium cycle with uranium 233 is far higher than the uranium cycle. Once this is achieved India is expected to be the EI Dorado of nuclear energy, along with fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Notwithstanding India’s leading position in the thorium cycle – there is another aspect which is closely linked to India’s self-vision and aspirations. Where would India stand in the global pecking order in the years 2010, 2015, and 2020. The progress that India records at these three benchmark years will determine where India will be in 2050. There is a lot of expectations and euphoria, and economic projections are being drawn. What is missing from many of these projections is the aspect of security. Development and security are interdependent. Without one, the other cannot flourish.

In the aftermath of India’s May 1998 nuclear tests many pundits from both inside India and, outside said that nuclear weapons were not a requisite for economic development. The examples of post-war Japan and Germany were quoted. What was conveniently omitted, however, was that both Japan and Germany were covered by the US nuclear umbrella, whereas India came under the adversarial nuclear shadow of China and Pakistan. The latter’s nuclear weapons programme was set up by China to counter India. Chinese broke all international non-proliferation regimes whether signed or pledged. As the Chinese would say this was the ‘truth’ distilled from ‘facts’. In the 1980s and 1990s the monitors of WMD proliferation led by the United States turned a benevolent blind eye to China’s proliferation to Pakistan. USA’s regional and global interests allowed proliferation. Therefore, it can be said that Washington was equally responsible as China for what emerged as the ‘Great Dr. A.Q. Khan’ network of WMD proliferation.

India’s political, diplomatic and strategic communities must conclude a holistic approach to the nuclear deal to begin with. It is essential for India to come out of the nuclear apartheid to emphatically establish its regional and global position. This does not mean signing on to the NPT and CTBT. These are sacrosanct positions, and giving way to one will bring every thing else in the nuclear arena crashing down. These can be addressed only after India attains the level of a recognised nuclear power with a credible second strike capability which can divert to the enemy. The current Indian nuclear deterrent capability is admittedly weak.

On the other hand, one must also be prepared to pay for goods acquired, but not at blackmail rates. The quantum of payment will depend upon negotiating skills and, most importantly, the national commitment of our negotiators. In the last 25 months of negotiation with the US, some Indians exhibited an inclination to sell soft. It must be boldly admitted that the US spin machine was working overtime in India to that extent that Indian individuals tried to portray our scientists not only uneducated but fools, who did not understand anything of the proposed agreement. For sometime, there was a virulent attack on the Indian nuclear scientist community for obstructing the deal as the Americans started shifting goal posts. How and why this happened is not difficult for observers to decipher. In such a major defining agreement there are careers to be made, heroes to emerge and loaded handshakes that transcend borders.

It cannot, and must not be denied that a strong anti-proliferation lobby was working in Washington to either scuttle the July 18, 2005 joint statement, or turn the entire issue from a peaceful nuclear energy cooperation agreement to a non-proliferation agreement. A State Department spokesman is on record stating the deal was on non-proliferation. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has been provocatively releasing reports for some years now that India’s nuclear programme was not indigenous but clandestinely procured from abroad, and that India was a proliferator. The so-called holy crusaders in Washington D.C. against WMD proliferation made several efforts to nail Indian entities assisting Iraq’s and Iran’s nuclear weapon programmes. None of this stood scrutiny.

Yet, these same crusaders failed to bring out a detailed paper on the Pakistani Nuclear Scientists A.Q. Khan’s nuclear black market as done by the International Institute of Strategic Studies(IISS). Nor have they gone into any depth to probe China’s nuclear weapons proliferation to Libya through Pakistan. Technical documents provided by Pakistan to Lybia, now in US custody, had marginal notes in Chinese characters. There are many instances when Washington’s non-proliferation lobby had acted suspiciously biased.

Washington D.C. is a city of lobbyists. There are any number of lobbying firms who employ former officials with high salaries. Most of these firms take up contracts for different interest groups – corporations, political parties, foreign embassies and interests. These are legitimate business. One would be astounded to know how both internal and external policies of the United State are shaped by these lobbyist firms. All depends on force of arguments.

Then there are lobbyist groups comprising expatriates of different countries. The Israeli lobby is reported to be the strongest. The Chinese are, however, not far behind. They have a group known as the “Committee of Hundred.â€
Rudranath
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 21
Joined: 19 Aug 2007 15:53

Post by Rudranath »

India can become manufacturing hub for nuke energy: Kakodkar
19 Sep 2007

VIENNA: India on Wednesday said it looked forward to opening up of international civil nuclear cooperation that is sustainable, free from interruption and consistent with its national policy.

Addressing the 51st General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), India's top nuclear scientist Anil Kakodkar said India also has the potential of becoming a manufacturing hub for the global nuclear industry.

"India is looking forward to the possibility of opening up of international civil nuclear cooperation. We expect such cooperation to be sustainable, free from interruptions and consistent with our national policy of closed fuel cycle," said Kakodkar, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).

He noted that an AEC panel has evaluated several coastal sites in the country for setting up of imported reactors.

Kakodkar said reactor imports were an additionality to the ongoing indigenous nuclear programme to significantly augment nuclear power generation capacity in the near term.

He said the civil nuclear deal with the US also opens up the possibility of export of reactors and services.

"India today is the only country to have technologies, design and infrastructure for small Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors with a unit capacity of 220 MW, which have a great potential for export, particularly to countries with small grids, wishing to enter nuclear power generation with relatively modest investment and infrastructure," he said.

"With India's large infrastructure base and relatively low manufacturing cost, there is also potential for India becoming a manufacturing hub for equipment and components for the global nuclear industry," he said.



Kakodkar, ElBaradei discuss India's civil nuclear programme
20 Sep 2007, 1313 hrs IST,PTI

VIENNA: Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar met International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohammed ElBaradei and discussed the indigenous civil nuclear programme but there was no reference to Indo-US nuclear deal.

Kakodkar hosted lunch for ElBaradei and chiefs of atomic energy commissions of some countries on the sidelines of the 51st General Conference of the UN nuclear watchdog.

"We talked about India's partnership in several programmes of the IAEA, especially on the Innovative Nuclear Cycle Programme which has immense potential to lead to a global enhancement in the availability of safe and economical nuclear energy," Kakodkar said on Thursday.

Asked whether the India-specific safeguards agreement came up for discussions, he said "such topics are not discussed over lunch."

When referred to the political controversy over the deal back home, he said "I did not discuss politics".
vsudhir
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2173
Joined: 19 Jan 2006 03:44
Location: Dark side of the moon

Post by vsudhir »

sunilUpa
BRFite
Posts: 1795
Joined: 25 Sep 2006 04:16

Post by sunilUpa »

India-IAEA negotiations to be held in October

IAEA round must end by Nov 11
NEW DELHI: India has a deadline for the nuclear deal -- the US plans to formally present the India-US nuclear deal for an exemption at the NSG meeting in South Africa on November 11.

Since this can be possible only if India manages to sew up the details of its safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) before then, UPA government will soon be required to take a call on getting past the Left-dictated pause on negotiations with the IAEA.

To that extent, the US timetable may have the effect of precipitating the political confrontation which has looked certain but which the two sides have so far managed to avert.

India doesn't have to sign the safeguards agreement just yet, it will only be signed after the NSG and US Congress clears the deal. But the details of the agreement will need to be worked out.

The expectation is this -- the 45 member countries will certainly ask for over a month to make up their minds, work out the political calculations etc. Which means the US may call in an extraordinary meeting of the group in January to formally decide on the exemption.

Following this, the US wants to give the deal to the Congress for its mandatory up-down vote. Ideally, US has informed India, it would like to present it to Congress soon after the winter break.

The Congress itself has 90 days before voting on it, a very complicated process, involving restrictions on recess for more than three days etc.

Senior US official and chief technical negotiator of the 123 Agreement, Richard Stratford, said in Vienna on Thursday, "The US wants to meet the entire pre-requisites of the operationalisation of the deal by the end of this year."

He said the US will try to impress upon the NSG member nations the need for clean and unconditional exemption sought by India for nuclear trade under the Indo-US civil nuclear deal. It will be his job to convince the NSG of the viability and importance of the Indian nuclear deal.

"I will explain to the members how both India and the US arrived at the agreement and also put forth the conditions asked by India for a clean, unconditional exemption (from NSG rules to enable nuclear commerce)," Stratford was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, in Ankara, US undersecretary Nicholas Burns said, "I think the US and India nuclear deal is... going to be successful, we are going to move forward on it, and you'll see that happen in the next few months." Everybody expects the NSG to be a difficult sell. Both US and India are separately preparing to hardsell the deal to the rest of the world.

While Americans are more conversant with the nitty-gritty of selling a deal, for Indian diplomacy, it's a novel exercise. It means the otherwise brahmanical :twisted: :evil: minded foreign service will have to turn corporate lobbyists which is itself a difficult exercise.
bala
BRFite
Posts: 1975
Joined: 02 Sep 1999 11:31
Location: Office Lounge

Post by bala »

U.S. briefs NSG

[quote] Vienna: The U.S. on Thursday briefed the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group on the civil nuclear deal as part of its efforts to seek changes in NSG guidelines to allow nuclear trade with India.

A senior American official said: “The U.S. wants to meet the entire pre-requisites of the operationalisation of the deal by the end of this year.â€
vsudhir
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2173
Joined: 19 Jan 2006 03:44
Location: Dark side of the moon

Post by vsudhir »

Sanku
BRF Oldie
Posts: 12526
Joined: 23 Aug 2007 15:57
Location: Naaahhhh

Post by Sanku »

Satya_anveshi
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3532
Joined: 08 Jan 2007 02:37

Post by Satya_anveshi »

No N-deal split within Left: Karat:: By Seema Mustafa
New Delhi, Sept. 22: CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Saturday hit out at the media for biased reporting, saying that it was focused on projecting differences between the Left leaders when there were none. He said the CPI(M) had taken a considered decision to support nuclear power and this is what had been stated by West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, but "immediately they said this means that there are differences between us".

He said that when the chief minister supported nuclear power that "does not mean he is supporting the nuclear deal with the US, just as when I oppose the nuclear deal it does not mean that I am opposed to nuclear power". Mr Karat said there were many in the CPI(M) who did not believe that nuclear energy was the answer to the nation’s power woes, but "after discussing the issue at length we decided to support nuclear power in itself". He made it clear that there was no shift in the CPI(M)’s stand and that it would not allow this government to go ahead with the nuclear deal.

Responding to government propaganda through the media that the CPI(M) was close to China, Mr Karat said, "If tomorrow China supports the government in the Nuclear Suppliers Group that does not mean that we will stop opposing the deal." He reminded the media that the Left had been opposed to the NPT and the CTBT despite pressure from China on India to join the regime. He said the managements of the two big newspapers in Delhi were now queuing up for FDI with the same source and represented a certain class interest that wanted to see India become a subordinate of the US. He said it was clear now that the Americans and the Left were speaking the truth about the strategic importance of the 123 agreement, and not the government.

Mr Karat said the Left had been told by the government that this agreement was unique, adding, "so unique that for 40 years we will be blackmailed by the United States". He was emphatic that as a political front that was supporting the government "we will definitely not go down in history as having facilitated this blackmail for another 40 years". He said the Left parties wanted to go ahead with the discussions in the UPA-Left committee in full seriousness so that "we can persuade them not to go ahead". But, he pointed out, it was unlikely as they were coming up against a mindset that believed in making India subordinate to the US. "But we will still make the effort as history" he said.

The government, the CPI(M) general secretary said, was determined to go ahead with the deal. "We are also digging in our heels and the government must not proceed with the negotiations with the IAEA," he said. "What is this commitment they have made to the US," he asked, adding, "We cannot accept the time frame set by the Americans." Mr Karat said the government must tell the Americans that "we have a democracy like yours, and our people do not want us to go ahead with the deal." Discuss it, debate it, he said, and let the country reach an informed consensus.

Mr Karat said the country was now divided sharply into two camps, one that believes that India can rise by linking itself to the US bandwagon, and the other that is positive that India has to realise her own strengths and has to follow her own independent path. He said the need was for all patriotic citizens to join the struggle ahead as it was not for the Left alone to prevent India from becoming a subordinate ally of the US. The future of the UPA government was just a "very small part" of this long struggle, he said.

"I do not trust this government," Mr Karat said, citing the vote against the IAEA as a breach of faith. He said it was clear that India will go along with the US position on Iran. "We will have to abandon the gas pipeline, we will have to go along with an aggression on Iran that will be justified by saying it is promoting terrorism in Iraq," he said. Speaking of the initiative between the US and India on promoting democracy across the world, Mr Karat asked, "Where will we join the US in promoting democracy? In Iraq, in Iran, in Africa, in Latin America?"
Gerard
Forum Moderator
Posts: 8012
Joined: 15 Nov 1999 12:31

Post by Gerard »

Gerard
Forum Moderator
Posts: 8012
Joined: 15 Nov 1999 12:31

Post by Gerard »

Paul
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3800
Joined: 25 Jun 1999 11:31

Post by Paul »

[quote]

Exercising sovereignty
Mutuality of interests is the guiding factor
by K. Subrahmanyam

The debate on the nuclear deal in the country throws light on how poorly certain sections of the Indian elite have developed a sense of national sovereignty during the last 60 years of Independence. Even those who are worried about possible dimunition of sovereignty on account of India entering into international deals leading to the lifting of the technology embargo are not able to cite any past instance of India compromising on national sovereignty.

Not that such criticism had not been levelled in the past. Jawaharlal Nehru was called a running dog of imperialists and their lackey. Others denounced his decision to keep India as a republic in the Commonwealth. He was derided when he appealed for arms aid to the international community following the Chinese attack.

There were criticisms of the Indo-Soviet Treaty of peace and friendship in 1971 and there were predictions that India was being made a Soviet satellite. Suspicions were voiced about a secret clause in the Indo-Soviet Treaty which made our nonalignment “not genuineâ€
Suraj
Forum Moderator
Posts: 15043
Joined: 20 Jan 2002 12:31

Post by Suraj »

Greg Sheridan again:
We must make room for a nuclear India
Nothing is more important in India at the moment than its nuclear co-operation deal with the US. The deal effectively accepts India as a nuclear weapons state. It divides the Indian nuclear program into its peaceful and military components.

The peaceful, power-generating components will fall under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which will enact a special protocol for India. This is necessary because the IAEA can only work fully with nations that are either accepted nuclear weapons states (US, Britain, China, Russia, France) or are members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and don't have nuclear weapons.

Thus the entire world will carve out, as it should, a special place for a nuclear India. But the deal still has many hurdles to pass in India, in the US and internationally.

In India the deal is controversial with the Left and the Right. This is most assuredly not because the Left is anti-nuclear. In India the entire political spectrum believes the nation must keep its nuclear weapons and should further develop nuclear energy generation.

Rather the Left feels the deal draws India too close to the US strategically and will make India a de facto ally. The Congress Party is the dominant party in the Indian Government and its Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, and party boss Sonia Gandhi are resolutely committed to the deal. The Left is important, however, because it is in coalition with Congress and Congress could not govern without it. So the Government could conceivably fall if the Left abandoned the coalition and voted against the Government on a confidence matter, even though the nuclear deal itself does not require ratification by parliament. The feeling is that Congress will have to buy the Left's support, but not necessarily with a concession on nuclear matters.

On the Right, the Opposition Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party is opposed to the deal because it believes it is too restrictive about what India can do in the future, especially in terms of nuclear weapons tests. The deal does not say that India cannot conduct nuclear tests but rather allows the US to pull out of the deal if India does conduct further tests. But it is very unlikely India will need to conduct further atmospheric nuclear tests. Further testing and refinement can be conducted in laboratories.

Within the US, there is considerable opposition to the deal. But it's very hard to imagine it finally being voted down in the US Congress. The Indian community in the US is the single most successful ethnic minority or migrant group. This is an astonishing and little recognised fact. The India caucus in Congress -- that is, congressmen who have joined an organisation to support friendship with India -- is huge and immensely powerful. Any Democrat contemplating the presidency would want India as a close friend of the US. Nobody in the US wants to be the person who "lost" India.

Finally, there is the international community. The IAEA has to create a special protocol for India and it is likely to do this, as the US-India deal already has the strong support not only of the US but also of France and Russia. Germany, initially hesitant, has come around. China, while it despises India's nuclear capabilities, has a booming trade relationship with India that it does not want to jeopardise. It is not going to oppose the deal publicly, though it will whisper unhelpful things privately.

This dynamic is both fascinating and illustrative of things to come. India is, if measured on the basis of purchasing power parity, already the fourth largest economy in the world. And it is growing at 9 per cent a year. No one wants to demolish their bilateral relationship with India.

The final piece of the international institutional architecture is the Nuclear Suppliers Group of 45 countries. The NSG theoretically operates by consensus and could therefore be prevented from authorising trade with India on the basis of the objections of, say, New Zealand or Ireland. This is not going to happen. If a small nation tries to exercise a veto the rules will be changed and the veto will be ineffective.

Enter Australia. Australia is important in two ways. It holds more than one-third of the world's known uranium deposits, so whether it sells uranium to India is important. Second, because of its uranium stocks, it is an unusually important member of the NSG. An Australian veto on India at the NSG would be much harder to ignore, although the potential for Australia being isolated is strong.

The Howard Government supports the US-India deal and has already come to an agreement with the Indian Government that it will export uranium to India. It will of course support India at the NSG. The Rudd Opposition at this stage has a position that it will not sell uranium to India because India is not a member of the NPT and that it will oppose India at the NSG.

The timing here could be quite tricky. If the IAEA works out a protocol around mid-October and the Indian Government holds together, and if the US Congress approves the deal in the next weeks or months, the NSG could be meeting in the first weeks of a Rudd government.

Rudd and his senior ministers would have a million issues coming at them at once, as any new government does. It would be exceptionally difficult for it to work its way through the politics and policy of this issue.

It's important to note of course that Australia proposes to sell uranium to India under strict safeguards, which means it can only be used in the peaceful nuclear energy generation field, not for weapons. These are the same conditions under which we sell uranium to China and are proposing to sell uranium to Russia.

Privately, Indian politicians say they understand people say different things before and after elections. It is probably a reasonable assumption that if the nuclear deal goes ahead internationally with IAEA approval, the co-operation of the US and all the big Europeans, and no opposition from any significant Asian nation, an Australian government that stood against India in those circumstances would not only be entirely ineffective, but would be courting very grave damage to the Australia-India relationship.

My sense, admittedly after only a week in New Delhi, is that the US-India nuclear deal will go through. It is a revolution in the affairs of the world. In a sense it is a partial remaking of global architecture to accommodate India, exactly as many elements of global architecture were remade to accommodate China.
Raju

Post by Raju »

Nuclear Agreement With US Rips India Apart
By Pierre Prakkash
Libération

Thursday 27 September 2007

Communists threaten to stop supporting the New Delhi government.

Presented by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as one of the biggest successes of his term, the cooperation agreement on civilian nuclear matters signed at the end of July with the United States could paradoxically cost his government its life. Just as he had finished finalizing the terms of this historic text, concluded after two years of bitter negotiations with Washington, the Congress Party-led government is confronted with a new obstacle: its Communist allies. Fiercely anti-American, the Indian far left sees this bilateral accord as an outrage against national sovereignty, liable to make India a client of American hegemony. The Congress Party, which leads the governmental coalition, cannot maintain itself in power without the Communists' external support.

The crisis is such that Manmohan Singh, usually very reserved, flew off the handle last month, challenging his allies to bring down his government. In the end, he was forced to give in by creating a multiparty committee charged with examining the "consequences" of the agreement on India's foreign policy.

Nonaligned

Beyond the domestic political crisis, India's geopolitical repositioning on the international scene is at stake. Former leader of the nonaligned nations, but close to Moscow during the Cold War, in recent years New Delhi has proceeded to develop a strategic rapprochement with Washington, of which the civilian nuclear energy agreement constituted the capstone. That text, which allows for the possibility of selling technology and nuclear fuel to New Delhi, constitutes a complete reversal of the last thirty years of American policy. In effect, India, which, unlike Iran, never ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), was forbidden all assistance in that domain ever since it proceeded to its first nuclear tests in 1974.

In July 2005, George W. Bush nonetheless committed to making an "exception," with the new Indian ally being suddenly considered a "responsible nuclear power." Even more surprising, New Delhi obtained the ability to keep its military installations well away from all future inspections. In full Iranian crisis over proliferation, the affair logically raised a series of outcries in the United States from numerous members of Congress - from Democrats as well as Republicans - who saw it as a dangerous precedent. But the Bush administration was determined to see this agreement come to fruition. "I want this deal," the American president ordered his team during his visit to New Delhi in March 2006.

Why this new American willfulness? For commercial reasons - potential sales of equipment for future Indian nuclear power stations, and the possibility of reducing pressure on oil prices, with India importing three-quarters of its energy resources - but also for geo-political reasons. The Bush administration seems to want to play the Indian democracy card to limit China's growing influence in Asia. That wager is far from being won, since, after four decades of tumultuous relations, the elephant and the dragon are just now in the process of reconciliation.

Sworn Enemy

However that may be, India, always in quest of international recognition, is delighted to see itself suddenly propelled to the rank of "strategic partner" to the world's biggest power. All the more so, as, during the Cold War, the United States' traditional ally in the region was none other than India's sworn enemy, Pakistan. Now, although Washington cannot for the moment do without Islamabad in its war against terrorism, it is clearly favoring its relations with New Delhi. The proof: when Islamabad in its turn demanded assistance with civilian nuclear power, it was politely, but firmly, rebuffed.

But if the rapprochement with Washington is undeniable, it does not, all the same, mean that New Delhi is taking orders from the White House; far from it. Thus, in the last few years, in spite of intense pressures, New Delhi has refused to send troops to Iraq, to give up a pipeline planned with Iran, or to accommodate American interests in the framework of the negotiations underway at the World Trade Organization (WTO). As for the famous nuclear agreement, it does not prevent India from pursuing its military program or proceeding to new tests.

Hurry Up and Wait

Before that, the government must still negotiate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) - that is, the club of 45 acknowledged civilian nuclear powers. Then the text will be presented before the American Congress once again. Knowing that the United States is entering an election period, the government must hurry up. Yet, for now, all negotiations are suspended on the results of a committee formed with the Communists, with no fixed schedule - a formula that could lead straight to early elections.

Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092807G.shtml
svinayak
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14223
Joined: 09 Feb 1999 12:31

Post by svinayak »

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holn ... 292069.htm
Indo-US deal skewed in favour of US'

Mumbai, Sept. 29 (PTI): The Indo-US civil nuclear deal is skewed in favour of the US, which wants to use India to contain China for its own purpose, while not giving it freedom to develop as a nuclear power independently, a former senior scientist said here today.

"China is growing as a major power and had to be contained. US needed the support of a stable and reliable regime in the Asian region for this purpose and so India appeared to be the best bet" said Dr B B Singh, who worked in Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) for four decades.

Singh was talking at the `Prajnya Manch' - a think tank forum of Maharashtra BJP.

He said the Hyde Act 2006 and the India-specific 123 agreement draft is meant to serve the US interest because it does not want India to develop as a nuclear power independently.

He also said having realised that the sanctions against India, which were imposed after it had conducted nuclear tests were not effective, it found a different way to curb it.

Singh said the US also wants to monitor every nuclear activity of India through the Hyde Act.

This Act mandates the US President to keep congressional committees fully informed of almost all nuclear activities of India, including those relating to the amount of uranium mined and milled in India, Singh added.

arun
BRF Oldie
Posts: 10248
Joined: 28 Nov 2002 12:31

Post by arun »

X Post :roll: :

[quote]Issue Date: Tuesday, October 02, 2007

America’s true atomic colours

K.P. NAYAR

New York, Oct. 1: The Bush administration may profess to “help India become a major world power in the 21st centuryâ€
Arun_S
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2800
Joined: 14 Jun 2000 11:31
Location: KhyberDurra

Post by Arun_S »

Wool pulled over India’s eyes
The Asian Age, Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Brahma Chellaney

There would have been no political uproar over the nuclear deal had the Prime Minister taken on board all important stakeholders on an issue centred on the future of India’s most-prized strategic asset — its nuclear programme. Acquiescence to the deal’s shifting goalposts also stoked controversy.

Undaunted by the conditions-laden Hyde Act, New Delhi went ahead and concluded an ambiguously formulated 123 Agreement with a country that has a record of gutting even carefully crafted international treaties and bilateral accords, including an earlier 123 pact with India. The US can happily live with ambiguities in the latest 123 Agreement because the accord — a requirement only under American law — carries no force under the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and, in any event, it confers enforceable rights just on the supplier-state. How willingly India ceded ground can be seen from the reprocessing issue.

Illusive reprocessing right.

Reprocessing is at the heart of India’s plans to build long-term energy security. The PM had pledged to secure an unqualified right to reprocess spent fuel. Indian nuclear chief Anil Kakodkar even called India’s right to reprocess "non-negotiable."

India ended up, however, making concessions beyond its Separation Plan merely to obtain an empty theoretical right to reprocess. The practical right to reprocess is to be separately negotiated in the future. Like on full cooperation, India settled for a conceptual entitlement than for an actual right.

The Separation Plan, whose contents were negotiated with Washington and presented to Parliament, had specified only two reprocessing-related actions: (i) "India is willing to accept safeguards in the campaign mode after 2010 in respect of the Tarapur Power Reactor Fuel Reprocessing (PREFRE) Plant"; and (ii) the Tarapur and Rajasthan spent-fuel storage pools "would be made available for safeguards with appropriate phasing between 2006-2009."

Why did India go beyond the Separation Plan in agreeing to sideline PREFRE and build an expensive new facility at its own cost? According to the 123 Agreement, to bring its reprocessing right "into effect, India will establish a new national reprocessing facility dedicated to reprocessing safeguarded nuclear material under IAEA safeguards, and the parties will agree on arrangements and procedures under which such reprocessing or other alteration in form or content will take place in this new facility."

India has agreed not only to build a new dedicated facility, but also, as Manmohan Singh admitted, to route all spent fuel of foreign-origin through that plant. PREFRE thus will be used only for safeguarded indigenous fuel. This concession symbolises yet another breach of assurance to Parliament.

According to the US government, it will be years before India can hope to secure the actual right to reprocess — New Delhi has to first build the dedicated facility and then negotiate with Washington a separate Section 131 reprocessing agreement. At his July 27, 2007, news conference, Nicholas Burns was clear: (i) there is no timeframe within which the US intends to grant India the operational consent to reprocess; and (ii) before negotiations on the "arrangements and procedures" under Section 131 of AEC can begin, India has first to build the new "state-of-the-art" reprocessing facility to US satisfaction.

Yet the PM speciously told Parliament on August 13, 2007, that the right to reprocess has already been "secured upfront," going to the extent of calling it a "permanent consent." If Singh wishes to see an agreement with an operational consent to reprocess, he could look up the 1987 Japan-US accord, which came into force the following year.

The Japan-US 123 accord was accompanied by a nine-page "implementing agreement" which gave effect to "advance, long-term consent for reprocessing, transfers, alteration and storage of nuclear material" to Tokyo by spelling out the various reprocessing-related arrangements. In his message to Congress, President Ronald Reagan said, "These arrangements should enable Japan to plan for its long-term energy needs on a more assured, predictable basis…"

Shouldn’t New Delhi have also insisted on a "more assured, predictable basis" of cooperation through a similar operational right to reprocess? Why did it agree to defer operational consent to the future, to be worked out under Section 131, which is titled "Subsequent Arrangements"? While the 123 Agreement states that negotiations on the subsequent arrangements "will begin within six months of a request by either party and will be concluded within one year" thereafter, the arrangements have to pass muster with the US Congress, which under Section 131 is empowered to adopt a concurrent resolution blocking such a plan.

Couldn’t nuclear India have secured a 123 deal with the US on terms at least similar to those granted to non-nuclear Japan? Like a parent calming a demanding kid, the US placated the Indian government by handing the consent-in-principle lollipop.

Yet another stage has been added to the deal.

After more than two years, the deal has completed just two of the five obligatory stages. But now, through the 123 Agreement, a sixth stage has been added — a separate Section 131 agreement on reprocessing.

Furthermore, the sequencing of the next steps has now been changed to New Delhi’s disadvantage. As the July 27, 2007, separate Indian and US fact-sheets revealed, New Delhi has agreed to first conclude an IAEA safeguards agreement before the Nuclear Suppliers Group even attempts to carve out an India exemption from its 1992 export guidelines.

While America legislated a conditional export-control exemption for India without awaiting the safeguards pact, the US-led NSG will follow a different principle. Washington will seek to ensure that the NSG does not make an exemption on terms less restrictive than those set by the US Congress. The Hyde Act stipulates that the NSG exemption for India should neither be less stringent than what the Act itself prescribes, nor take effect before the final congressional consent to the deal. The latter rider is intended to ensure that other suppliers do not gain a head-start over US businesses.

But look at the implications of New Delhi’s climbdown on the reprocessing issue: having expended millions of dollars in a lobbying campaign to get the infamous Hyde Act passed, India has now to brace up to two more battles on Capitol Hill — securing congressional approval first of the 123 Agreement, and then of a special 131 Agreement. That is likely to subject India to continuing congressional scrutiny and demands for a long time.

By deferring a resolution of the reprocessing issue to the future while flaunting a barren notional right at present, India also risks getting into a bigger mess than over Tarapur, whose spent fuel continues to accumulate 38 years after the twin-reactor power station began operating. The Tarapur mess has persisted even though the 1963 agreement granted India an operational consent to reprocess and provided for no congressional role. Yet Washington blocked India from reprocessing by exploiting an innocuous provision calling for a "joint determination" that the reprocessing facility would be adequately safeguarded. The US simply refused to join India in such a "joint determination" even after the IAEA had certified that very facility — PREFRE — to be "safeguardable." Indeed, the IAEA has applied safeguards in the "campaign mode" to PREFRE since the Eighties, whenever India introduced safeguarded fuel there from another power station, RAPS.

In the new 123 accord, the US has gained an effective veto on Indian reprocessing until such indeterminate time India has satisfied it by building a new "state-of-the-art" facility and working out the subsequent "arrangements and procedures." The last Indian reprocessing facility at Kalpakkam took five years to complete, but the new one is likely to take longer, given the external involvement in its design and the absence of an international "state-of-the-art" model. National security adviser M.K. Narayanan has already warned that "spoilers" could nit-pick on its design to delay the process. "You will get spoilers I am quite sure … if someone is quibbling that ‘I don’t like it to be facing west, it should face east,’ I mean that would be different," he said in an interview published on July 28, 2007.

Against this background, it is inexcusable that Indian negotiators have sought to pull the wool over the public’s eyes on key issues. Can allegiance to the deal be allowed to trump national interest?

Today the deal has become a political cudgel in a spreading storm. Yet there is a silver lining. The furore drives home an important message: Indian democracy has matured to the point that without winning public trust, no PM can move forward on a core national-interest issue.

Concluded
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Post by ramana »

From PTI, 3 Oct.2007
N-deal will be done: Burns

PTI | Washington

Posted online: October 03, 2007

United States Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns has expressed hope that the India-US civil nuclear deal will be done and that Americans, in about twenty years next, would be able to look at India as being one of its two or three most important allies in the world.

"The nuclear deal is done. We hope that will happen. I think, Americans might be able to say 20 years from now, India is one of our most two or three most important partners in the world," Burns said in an interview with Public Broadcasting Services (PBS).

"That will be a tremendous strategic change for us from the relationship we've had with India since 1947, 60 years now, and a great benefit to us, and I think, it will be to the Indians as well... India is a global country. It's a democracy. It tends to see the world the way we do. It has an interest in stability in South and East Asia the way we do," he observed.

Burns argued that the United States' evolving strategic relationship with India went beyond the fact that the country was growing economically.

"I think, well beyond that. We live in a globalised world, where many of the problems confronting us do not lend themselves to the actions of even the most powerful State, the United States... You need friends. You need allies. You need countries to help you build democracies overseas, to resolve conflicts like the one in Burma that we're witnessing so dramatically this week, to overcome global climate change and international drug and criminal cartels," Burns said.
bala
BRFite
Posts: 1975
Joined: 02 Sep 1999 11:31
Location: Office Lounge

Post by bala »

Indo-US nuke deal will not have any adverse impact: Kakodkar


Jamshedpur, Oct. 3 (PTI): The Indo-US nuclear deal would not have any adverse impact on the country's nuclear programme, including defence, Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar said here today.

"We are trying to develop cooperation as means of opening up of international cooperation and the idea is that we have our domestic programme and have to be self-reliant," Kakodkar, who was on a visit to the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) mines at Jadugora, said.

The domestic nuclear programme had a long-term objective of realising the full potential of thorium towards energy independence of the country, he said.

"Now the question is our energy requirement is very large. So there should be additional input over and above our domestic programme ... That is where we are looking at international nuclear co-operation.

"The importance of the Indo-US nuclear deal is that it would pave the way to meet our nuclear energy requirement," he said.

International nuclear co-operation was possible through Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) for which the country was not eligible at the moment as per the NSG guidelines, Kakodkar said.

The guidelines stated that a country should have full safeguard of its nuclear programme to have international co-operation in the nuclear energy field.
Sanku
BRF Oldie
Posts: 12526
Joined: 23 Aug 2007 15:57
Location: Naaahhhh

Post by Sanku »

NRao
BRF Oldie
Posts: 19224
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: Illini Nation

Post by NRao »

House resolution could delay India-US nuclear deal
In a move that could potentially delay the India-US nuclear deal, three US lawmakers have crafted a resolution asking the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to place tough constraints on future nuclear dealings with New Delhi.

The bipartisan non-binding resolution introduced in the US House of Representatives asks the administration not to seek an NSG exemption for India until it has addressed Congressional concerns over compliance with the enabling Hyde Act.

Citing Congressional aides Washington Post Thursday said the resolution was aimed at influencing the coming debate within the 45-member group of nations engaged in nuclear trade and a budding controversy in India over the pact.

The timing of the resolution introduced by Democrat Howard Berman and Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Jeff Fortenberry, also appears linked to the visit next week in India of Mohamed El-Baradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it said.

New Delhi needs to sign an India specific additional protocol with IAEA to bring its civil nuclear reactors under international safeguards as also persuade NSG to exempt it from nuclear trade rules before the nuclear deal comes up before US congress for final approval.

The resolution also asks Washington, which has begun to lobby for NSG approval, to support an exemption only if it contains key provisions of the Hyde Act, including the end of trade with India if it conducts a nuclear test and a ban on the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technology to India.

The Post said Congressional aides cited some of the text, saying they hoped it would make clear to India Congress's increasing uneasiness with the pact.

One noted language in the resolution's preamble that if the NSG approved the exemption, but Congress voted down the deal, India could engage in civil nuclear commerce with every country but the US, which would put US firms "at a competitive disadvantage."

US critics of the nuclear deal that would allow resumption of nuclear commerce between India and US after 30 years say the 123 agreement finalised by them last July to operationalise it does not comply with the spirit of the enabling law approved by the Congress in December 2006.

The deal has run into rough weather in India too with its leftist opponents, who support Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's coalition government from outside, alleging the 123 agreement impinges on Indian sovereignty.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has voiced its "concern" over the deal with a senior Pakistani diplomat suggesting that it denied a level-playing field to the two South Asian nuclear neighbours.


"Our concern is that while the US and other sources will provide India with the fissile material for its civilian nuclear reactor, India would be free to use all its fissile material for use in its weapons programme, with the result that its ability to produce its nuclear warheads will grow substantially, which of course will affect the whole idea of nuclear deterrence (in the region) that Pakistan would like to maintain," Zamir Akram, foreign policy advisor to Pakistan Prime Minister, said Thursday.

Such 'discrimination' in the past has been counter-productive, Zamir Akram suggested.

To "the argument that some people in Pakistan were involved in proliferation activity, I can only say that there is no country including India in the world whose hands are clean in terms of proliferation activities," he added.

India's 1974 nuclear explosion posed a strategic challenge to Pakistan, and moved it toward developing its nuclear capability. In 1998, when India tested again, Islamabad followed suit as it felt that not having tested its device would have created a situation of strategic asymmetry, which would have been extremely dangerous, Zamir Akram said.

Since the nuclear tests by the two countries in 1998, a situation of deterrence has emerged between them, he said suggesting, "this can actually be a stabilising factor if both sides agree that they would accept certain limits."

Pakistan is not opposed to Washington building close relations with India but would like that this relationship should not be at Pakistan's cost. "It should be an even-handed approach," he said.

The US, because of its partnership with both Pakistan and India, is in a better position to help from the background to resolve difference and problems that exist between them, Zamir Akram suggested.
NRao
BRF Oldie
Posts: 19224
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: Illini Nation

Post by NRao »

Skanda
BRFite
Posts: 327
Joined: 18 Sep 2007 02:19

Post by Skanda »

US/Indo Nuclear Agreement: Derailing A Deal



[quote]08 August, 2007 -- Nuclear-armed states are criminal states. They have a legal obligation, confirmed by the World Court, to live up to Article 6 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which calls on them to carry out good-faith negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely. None of the nuclear states has lived up to it. The United States is a leading violator, especially the Bush administration, which even has stated that it isn’t subject to Article 6.

On July 27, Washington entered into an agreement with India that guts the central part of the NPT, though there remains substantial opposition in both countries. India, like Israel and Pakistan (but unlike Iran), is not an NPT signatory, and has developed nuclear weapons outside the treaty. With this new agreement, the Bush administration effectively endorses and facilitates this outlaw behaviour. The agreement violates US law, and bypasses the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the 45 nations that have established strict rules to lessen the danger of proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, observes that the agreement doesn’t bar further Indian nuclear testing and, “incredibly, … commits Washington to help New Delhi secure fuel supplies from other countries even if India resumes testing.â€
Kakkaji
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3866
Joined: 23 Oct 2002 11:31

Post by Kakkaji »

Govt puts off talks with IAEA, NSG
Akhilesh Suman | New Delhi

Cong gives in to mounting pressure from poll-shy allies

Lalu, Pawar 'convince' Sonia to put deal in cold storage

The Government seems to have caved in under pressure of the allies to avert the possibility of mid-term polls and delay the slated negotiations with the IAEA and NSG for the next three months.

While there was no official word from the Government, the UPA allies have claimed that the Congress leadership has conveyed to them that they should not worry about political instability at this juncture.

The development comes amid reports that several UPA allies like the RJD, NCP and the DMK were totally opposed to going to the polls on the issue of India-US nuclear deal.

In fast changing political scenario, this could not be the last word on the UPA-Left stand-off on the nuclear deal since the Prime Minister's personal prestige is at stake, but the allies are convinced that the Government will not go ahead with the nuclear deal.

"We have been conveyed by the Congress leadership that the Government will not be going ahead on India-US civil nuclear agreement in the absence of consensus among the allies and the supporting Left parties," a senior Nationalist Congress Party leader told The Pioneer.

"The threat of election is over, there would be no mid-term polls now," he added.

The NCP leader did not attach much significance to spree of sops announced by the Government on regular basis. "This is an ongoing process to fulfil the commitment made in the National Common Minimum programme, it has nothing to do with immediate elections," he said.

UPA sources said that after CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat met Sonia Gandhi to reject a last-ditch effort by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to convince the Left to allow the Government to go ahead with structured negotiations with the IAEA, RJD chief Lalu Yadav and NCP leader Sharad Pawar had a detailed discussion with Sonia Gandhi.

According to NCP and RJD sources, the two leaders could convince the UPA chairperson that the time was not ripe for going into elections on the nuclear deal issue.

"See, against whom you would go into elections, against the Left parties who are our allies. It would not work in our favour," Lalu reportedly told Sonia.

RJD sources said jittery over going into elections on nuclear issue, the RJD chief had set up an internal party committee to "study the nuclear agreement" so as to conveniently backtrack on previous support to the Government on the issue.

Given the fact that the Left was in no way going to allow the Government to negotiate with the IAEA and the NSG, the face-saving formula is only to keep the talks with the Left parties going on without reaching any substantial conclusion. This will keep the deal in abeyance.

"At least for three months there would be no talk with the IAEA or the NSG on safeguards agreement or other conditionalities," the NCP leader said.

"Even IAEA chief ElBaradei has been conveyed specifically that we cannot negotiate till the reservations of the Left parties are sorted out,"
he added.

The NCP and the RJD leaders said that the DMK was also of the same view that mid-term poll was not in favour of the allies.

According to them, a major section in the Congress too is wary of the election and they want to present a people-friendly budget first and continue with popular sops to diminish "corporate-friendly" image of the ruling coalition.

Sources said that Union Minister for Chemicals and LJP leader Ram Vilas Paswan has also conveyed to the Government that they should try to find a solution with the Left to avert the danger of mid-term polls.
Sanjay M
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4892
Joined: 02 Nov 2005 14:57

Post by Sanjay M »

Cong Govt Turns Tail and Runs from Left Threats on N-Deal

Looks like another Dhabol debacle for Cheney
Kati
BRFite
Posts: 1850
Joined: 27 Jun 1999 11:31
Location: The planet Earth

Post by Kati »

Celebration time. Order pizza and open beer cans.....

Glad to see that unkil's sheep-skinned wolverine nuclear pact has been sent to the cold storage. karat has b@11s
Laks
BRFite
Posts: 192
Joined: 11 Jan 2005 20:47

Post by Laks »

bala
BRFite
Posts: 1975
Joined: 02 Sep 1999 11:31
Location: Office Lounge

Post by bala »

The experiment with Coalition politics is a disaster for India, looks like Commie Rascals have the dog wagging from the tail..
Meanwhile watch for the trail of bakshish payoffs from all kinds of special interest groups.

Government to end logjam on nuclear deal?
Left parties on Thursday made it clear that they did not want to precipitate the crisis for the 40-month-old Manmohan Singh [Images] government and were keeping a keen watch on the Centre's moves to end the logjam between the two sides over the Indo-US nuclear deal.

However, sources told UNI that the government is busy in finding a way out and the pressing compulsion is to avoid the possibility of mid-term polls.

Communist Party of India-Marxist veteran and Polit Bureau member M K Pandhe said, "We are for delaying the deal. So long as the government delays the deal, there is no question of the Left withdrawing support."

CPI leaders A B Bardhan and Shamim Faizi said there was an atmosphere on the part of both the sides to avoid a head-on confrontation on the nuclear deal and prevent mid-term polls. Besides the allies in the UPA also were not in favour of the polls, they added.

Forward Bloc national secretary G Devrajan said the Congress seemed to have developed cold feet on the deal for several reasons. The first being the party ranks not showing much enthusiasm for the mid-term polls at the moment. Secondly, the growing realization that the move may even boomerang. Uncertainty about the future alliance with the BSP was also another reason for a 'rethinking'' on its part.

Left leaders' observations assume political importance in the wake of the Nationalist Congress Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam reportedly having convinced the Congress leadership that the government should not be sacrificed for the sake of the deal and All India Congress Committee spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed ruling out the possibility of the mid-term polls.

The allies, who are said to be in constant touch with the Left, maintain that indigenous technology and better utilisation of available resources like coal, water and wind could be used to achieve the self sufficiency in power sector.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukerjee's act to get the Left to agree to informal consultations have not succeeded and instead the government now have been pushed to a position where it has to agree to revisit the deal.

Another report quoting a NCP leader suggested that at least for three months there would be no talks with the IAEA or the NSG on safeguards agreement or other conditions.

Besides, the Congress leadership is reported to have 'conveyed' to the allies that the government will not go ahead on the deal in the absence of consensus among the allies and the supporting Left parties, another media report added.
Muppalla
BRF Oldie
Posts: 7113
Joined: 12 Jun 1999 11:31

Post by Muppalla »

Nuclear detour, the untold story- Tactical shift not because of Left but to sidestep non-proliferation trap

K.P. NAYAR
Washington, Oct. 14: The Indo-US nuclear deal is not dead.

Contrary to the general perception, there is not even any slowdown in the operationalisation of the deal based on political considerations.

According to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sources in Vienna, India has concluded that it wants to put off signing an additional protocol and safeguards agreements with the IAEA.

In “informalâ€
Sanjay M
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4892
Joined: 02 Nov 2005 14:57

Post by Sanjay M »

no discussion on this thread boss - JE Menon
Locked