What enforces India to place any new imported reactors under safeguards?
The NPT.
While India is not a signatory, the supplier countries are. India must therefore have an agreement with the IAEA (INFCIRC66 etc) for the facilities it contracts with the suppliers.
New Delhi: Though India has made it clear that it expects the United States to deliver a “clean and unconditional exemption” for it from the export guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Washington says it is committed only to a “clean” and not “unconditional” waiver for New Delhi.
The distinction has not been lost on Indian officials as they await the American draft changes to the NSG guidelines.
According to sources, the draft is still going through the “inter-agency process” in Washington and might be handed over to New Delhi by Tuesday.
At a press conference on July 23, U.S. Ambassador David C. Mulford was at pains to clarify to journalists the distinction between the two concepts. He also said the “review by Congress” would be one of the “pieces” that NSG members would consider in granting their waiver, thereby opening the possibility of America seeking to tie the cartel down to not moving ahead with India until the domestic legislative process in the U.S. is complete.
Sequencing
During the internal negotiation process in Washington over the wording of the Hyde Act, the State Department’s principal nuclear negotiator, Richard Stratford, had argued that Congress was getting the sequencing wrong in vetting the 123 Agreement after the NSG had already acted. By insisting that the NSG act first, he said, India would be free to access nuclear supplies from elsewhere even if the U.S. Congress were to shoot down or delay ratification of the 123 Agreement.
Partly in order to deal with this problem, the U.S. is believed to have secured a “political understanding” from Russia and France that they would not rush to conclude export deals with India as soon as the NSG waiver comes through and would wait till Congress has the chance to ratify the 123 Agreement.
But with Congress now looking at a very tight schedule, it is possible some attempt will be made to include language in the NSG waiver making its implementation conditional on America completing its internal steps first.
To the extent to which this kind of drafting language would infringe on the sovereignty of the NSG’s 44 other members, officials here expect that any such move will be resisted by countries such as Russia.
Mulford said NSG waiver would be clean, not unconditional
Siddharth Varadarajan
New Delhi: At his press conference on July 23, U.S. Ambassador David C. Mulford was emphatic about the proposed waiver for India at the Nuclear Suppliers Group not being “unconditional”.
“I don’t think that you should use the word ‘unconditional waiver’,” he said in response to a question about the NSG. “I mean, what we talked about is getting a clean exemption, that means an exemption that is not laden with detailed concerns that we believe are adequately dealt with elsewhere, for example in the 123 Agreement, and secondly in the IAEA safeguards agreement, and finally in the determinations the President has to make under the Hyde Act.” When the U.S. and other members of the 45-nation NSG “go through this top to bottom,” said Mr. Mulford, “we will be able to move forward with a clean exemption.”
To a follow-up question what sort of conditions the U.S. expected the NSG to impose if the waiver were not unconditional, the Ambassador backtracked somewhat. “Let me go back to this question ‘unconditional waiver’. All I said there was I didn’t think that was the right word. I didn’t say there were going to be conditions,” he clarified. “By referring to it as a clean exemption, what we mean there is [the NSG will] decide to go ahead and agree to support the various pieces that have been put together — the 123 Agreement, the IAEA safeguards … and also the review made by Congress and the presidential determinations which go with that. We hope every country will then say we think this does cover all the issues we have on our mind and that they come out with a consensus for a movement forward which does not have conditions attached to it by the NSG. That’s basically the situation.”
Though he said the waiver not being “unconditional” didn’t mean the NSG exemption would involve conditions, it is significant that Mr. Mulford has been particular about only using the word “clean” when speaking about the waiver.
Asked repeatedly by Karan Thapar on CNBC on July 23 about a “clean and unconditional waiver,” for example, the U.S. Ambassador again used the first term and not the second in his answers each time.
According to Indian officials, the U.S. has been saying for some months now that the NSG waiver could include “reasonable conditionalities” and that the Europeans were insisting on these.
Shiv,
Electricity is produced and delivered through grid with two large component of generation since there is no storage capacity -
1) Base Load (~70% of grid) which always runs, produces bulk of energy at ~90% yearly plant load factor
2) Variable Load (~30% of grid) Production is either sporadic due to inherent weather conditions or can be made to slow down (hydro) to conserve stored energy with ease. These small plants empirically run at very low PLFs (~35% PLF for wind, 50% hydro, 20-30% solar) and produce energy which is considerably more expensive than thermal power plants
Only thermal plants (Coal, gas and Nuclear) are weather independent, reliable and large enough to go in to base load column rest mostly fall into variable load column.
Conclusion -
There is no reason to compare nuclear energy to wind, solar etc they are not comparable, they don't compete but complement each other. Nuclear energy should only be compared to other thermal power generation techniques like coal and gas.
ISLAMABAD: As the Pakistan prime minister reached Washington on Sunday to hold talks with US president George W Bush, the ministry of foreign affairs here received an urgent order from the foreign minister, who is also in Washington, to stop all counter-Indo-US nuclear deal activities.
Sources in the foreign office said the change was made under pressure from the US.
........................but, alas, is powerless to do anything about these mighty European countries and their 'concerns' about "non-proliferation"
NEW DELHI: Only three countries are not supportive of India in the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is to ratify the safety protocol signed by the nuclear watchdog with New Delhi.
Ireland, Switzerland and Austria are strong on non proliferation and are members of both the IAEA board and the Nuclear Suppliers Group,...............
[sd].
The US has to pull it through. Its entirely their responsibility at this point.
Too many things going on all at once. Bums, TSP, Panda, NSG, Afghanistan.... which ones to focus on. Its like having to take the math, physics, chemistry, biology and moral science tests all on the same day. Now which ones do you prep for. After a while you give up on the subject and try to decide which teacher to focus on
Last edited by pradeepe on 29 Jul 2008 08:18, edited 1 time in total.
It is time to raise the amber flag once again. The USG is backtracking on the NSG waiver. It has to be clean and unconditional. Otherwise GOI better walk away from the deal.
To borrow, Spinster garu's style, they will seek to hide the Hyde Act in the NSG waiver. It will become anteryami. Instead of naming and linking overtly in the NSG, there will be a provision most likely that should a member state of the NSG be compelled to take action under soverign laws in demanding India to comply with some provisions or stop or return fuel or material then other NSG members will cooperate with the said member so that the overall nuclear non-proliferation objectives of the NSG are maintained. If this happens, and the indications are this is likely to happen, then this deal should never be signed.
If any party signs up to this deal with such a NSG waiver, then it is commiting a grave mistake, and will and must loose power and the BJP or anyone else who will come to power must revoke any such deal as soon as they come to power.
Let us hope that the GOI act firmly and clearly on this if it wants this deal. There can be no compromise.
On a different note, the need for an Act or amendment to counter the Hyde Act is gaining momentum, so it is most likely that it will happen, given the GOI is open to it. But that will not be enough to save this deal if the NSG waiver is not clean, unconditional and practically irrevocable on their part.
There are a number of signs of US bad faith; similar to the sordid goings-on in the run-up to the Hyde fiasco.
India's IAEA draft has been with the entire world since July 7, but GoI has not been provided the NSG draft until today.
The US promise to share the NSG draft on Saturday has not been kept. On the other hand India's separation plan has been sought to be sanctified (and given a legal veneer) in the form of an IAEA INFCIRC even before the IAEA Board votes on the India-specific safeguards agreement.
MMS will need to make his position crystal clear on the NSG waiver language within the next few days.
I cannot see "clean" or "unconditional" meaning different things in different countries ....... no need to have NSG in that case. And, like Mr. Amby stated, there is no need for NSG to consider any thing because between the Hyde Act and 123 everything has been already considered. And, it seems to be acceptable to this GoI.
Reading the article, I get the impression that the 3rd stage is bound to be a non-starter. DAE may perhaps need to do a lot of explaining!
ADS may be one answer. Who knows, apart from ADS, may be some other non-fission source of neutrons (even if only at a low flux level) might be lurking around somewhere to be discovered / developed!!
On July 30, the Brookings Institution will host a panel discussion on the future and implications of the India-U.S. nuclear agreement. The panel will feature Brookings President Strobe Talbott, who as deputy secretary of state led negotiations with India following its 1998 nuclear tests; former Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, who was the United States lead negotiator on the nuclear agreement; and Robert Einhorn, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Brookings Senior Fellow Stephen P. Cohen will provide introductory remarks and comments.
So would countries like NZ, Austria, etc.
These are the neophyte believers of the "cool-aid" the NP Ayatollahs were/are selling.
Hence the convert is as dangerous as the mullah - sometimes even more!
However, these countries ought to remember that India (the lumbering elephant) has a long memory.
If they are against India, then with the growth to come one way or another - there will be a price to pay in the long run for their pigheadedness. The hope is that better sense will prevail...
Pulikeshi wrote:So would countries like NZ, Austria, etc.
These are the neophyte believers of the "cool-aid" the NP Ayatollahs were/are selling.
Hence the convert is as dangerous as the mullah - sometimes even more!
However, these countries ought to remember that India (the lumbering elephant) has a long memory.
If they are against India, then with the growth to come one way or another - there will be a price to pay in the long run for their pigheadedness. The hope is that better sense will prevail...
Exactly. It seems that India is taking a tough approach (finally):
Indian diplomats have adopted a pretty brutal approach, said western diplomats. With most countries, India was leveraging its bilateral relations for their nod on the nuclear deal, a sort of "with us or against us" approach.
If the NSG waiver is not clean and unconditional, I think India should pull out. (yes, I was and am pro-nuke deal). I wonder if the WTO acrimony has any cause and effect with the nuke deal as I see diplomatic dialogue getting rather heated.
From Indian express. This is at odds with the earlier report saying NSG draft wasn't upto India's liking. IE is trying to put a positive spin on the draft.
NEW DELHI, JULY 29: Picking up on the momentum gathered after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh won the trust vote last week, India and US have exchanged drafts of the “clean” exemption that Washington plans to circulate in the Nuclear Suppliers Group as soon as possible after the August 1 meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors. The draft makes no mention of either CTBT or testing.
It’s learnt that the draft is in the final stages of discussion with Washington today submitting the latest version to New Delhi. While the details of the draft were still being examined, sources said, India’s aim would be to ensure there are no explicit curbs on nuclear testing linked to terminating fuel supply.
With all key officials involved in the nuclear deal negotiations out of the country either lobbying with NSG members or at the SAARC Summit, sources said, India will take time arriving at its final decision. Given that the nuclear deal lost precious time to the political crisis over the entire issue, both countries have their job cut out at the NSG.
Though most countries favour India joining the mainstream of nuclear trade and submitting over 60 per cent of its nuclear reactors to permanent safeguards, the issue is the nature of exemption that these countries would agree to. To ensure that this turns out a “victory” for non-proliferation, many countries would want to attach stringent conditions on India for allowing nuclear trade despite it not being a member of the NPT.
However, India has little room to accommodate any further commitments beyond the Indo-US joint statement in July 2005. It is achieving this fine balance in the NSG exemption document where the real diplomatic challenge lies for both India and US. Already, few NSG countries, which are also members of the IAEA Board have started asking uncomfortable technical questions after Pakistan wrote a letter raising a range of issues on the India-specific safeguards agreement.
Countries like New Zealand, Ireland, Norway, Austria and other Scandinavian countries have serious non-proliferation concerns. The issue is internally very sensitive in these countries. In fact, sources pointed out countries like New Zealand — it’s in its election year — have not allowed US warships to enter their territorial waters because these ships refuse to either confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons onboard.
New Delhi is counting on the strong bilateral relations with each of these countries and their stake in that relationship. That’s why 10 envoys are now visiting over 60 countries to convey the PM’s message.
Today, Minister of State in PMO Prithviraj Chavan was in Beijing where he met State Councillor Dai Bingguo and head of the international relations cell of the Chinese Communist Party in a bid to create a favourable atmosphere for the NSG meeting being slated in August. He handed over letters from the PM to Chinese President Hu Jintao and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. But sources said China continued to remain non-committal although India feels it won’t stand in the way of a consensus.
Is the NSG draft available for our analysis ? If not, why go through the entire rigmarole of whining about drafts here until we have had a chance to see it ? Several months, and hundreds of posts, were expended on criticizing the IAEA draft before it became available. Yet the real deal wasn't exactly the ghastly sellout it was imagined to be. Why go by atmospherics all over again ?
At his press conference on July 23, U.S. Ambassador David C. Mulford was emphatic about the proposed waiver for India at the Nuclear Suppliers Group not being “unconditional”.
“I don’t think that you should use the word ‘unconditional waiver’,” he said in response to a question about the NSG. “I mean, what we talked about is getting a clean exemption, that means an exemption that is not laden with detailed concerns that we believe are adequately dealt with elsewhere, for example in the 123 Agreement, and secondly in the IAEA safeguards agreement, and finally in the determinations the President has to make under the Hyde Act.” When the U.S. and other members of the 45-nation NSG “go through this top to bottom,” said Mr. Mulford, “we will be able to move forward with a clean exemption.”
To a follow-up question what sort of conditions the U.S. expected the NSG to impose if the waiver were not unconditional, the Ambassador backtracked somewhat. “Let me go back to this question ‘unconditional waiver’. All I said there was I didn’t think that was the right word. I didn’t say there were going to be conditions,” he clarified. “By referring to it as a clean exemption, what we mean there is [the NSG will] decide to go ahead and agree to support the various pieces that have been put together — the 123 Agreement, the IAEA safeguards … and also the review made by Congress and the presidential determinations which go with that. We hope every country will then say we think this does cover all the issues we have on our mind and that they come out with a consensus for a movement forward which does not have conditions attached to it by the NSG. That’s basically the situation.”
Folks, Please read and re-read my amber light warning post again and again. The NSG waiver being "clean" but not "unconditional" is very significant.
For if it is not unconditional it can never be clean.
The threat then is not limited to the provisions of Hyde Act alone, but any and every other piece of legislation passed till now or to be passed in the future by any other NSG nation can impact India should they interpret India as a proliferator.
Please pause to think who else is there in the NSG. A certain People's Republic comes to mind doesn't it? That is only the starters there are other poodles who can do Uncle's bidding too thus "binding" Uncle to sanctions as a "responsible" follower and adherer of international treaties.
Let not the coming month of August be the one in which independence is compromised "not fully but significantly".
Raja Ram: Please define what 'clean' and 'unconditional' are, and why they are distinct, with examples from real NSG agreements for other nations for each case, as much as possible.
Please don't build a strawman on the base of poorly defined phrases; it will just start another long whinefest filled with more emotions than substance, and I'll be compelled to intervene.
I think the biggest back track will occur when India will not need any outside assistance - even if the B is dropped from FBR/BR. (I do not think this is a technical issue, it is a political and one of maturity - Indian politicians (and some others too perhaps) in general are very immature.)
Since India needs this import I just cannot see them walking away right now. I can see them walking away in 2040+
Kakodkar used those words first - far before Amby M did: as an example: here. He used both to cover all bases so that nothing is left out to corner India. It generally means that India should be able to import reactors and associated fuel and techs without any strings.
It is one thing for the US to attach strings, it is quote another for NSG to attach strings - even the same ones that the US has.
Suraj Sir,
May I say you post smack of thought policing. I have been here from day 1 when BR was launched and barring few small period of thought policing by one other moderator (who I dont see active now), I have never seen this intolerance of an viewpoint. You might not agree with Raja Ram but can you please give him his space. I have heard lots of your view on economics which by defination is not even a science (and thus is lots of vaporware), if emperical evidence, gut feeling unsubstainable theories can form the basis of economics, I don't see what is wrong with Raja Ram post. He has been predicting and theoririzing since past many years and I am confident to say that he has not been off mark too much!!
Let me define unconditional and clean for you as I understand it (and it is good for me, please dont fail me for poor defination!! ). Unconditional is where we get a waiver that does not ask us to do this or that to begin with. Clean (which does not go as far as unconditional) is what US hinks we should be doing and that does take into account Hyde act. If these two terms is bad enough for DDM and Indian ministers to fret about, it is bad for me.
September 04, 2007 17:40 IST
Last Updated: September 04, 2007 18:13 IST
India should have the right to import nuclear reactors from all members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group without any conditions, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar said on Tuesday.
"No post and pre-conditions should be laid and there is a need for clean, unconditional exemptions from NSG guidelines on the import of nuclear reactors," he told media persons on the sidelines of a graduation function at the Indira Gandhi [Images] Centre for Academic Research at Kalpakkam, about 75 km from Chennai.
He was responding to a query on NSG guidelines that restrict the export of reactors by members of the grouping, including the US, France [Images], Russia [Images], Australia and Japan [Images].
.............................
with examples from real NSG agreements for other nations for each case, as much as possible.
If India is finally laying it out and asking the "with us or against us" question, this is a great day.
Time for some "cold, blunt memos" to Australia, which sells uranium to China for proliferation to Pakistan, and to all these other people whose lies have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents at the hands of Pakistani terrorism. Even today they are lying when they bomb Afghanistan and treat pakistan with kid gloves.
Fanne: I disagree. I'm not policing Raja Ram's thoughts. I merely asked him to describe what 'clean' and 'unconditional' mean. That is not thought policing. It is not particularly apparent what the difference between the two terms is. Both are rather generic. Are you suggesting Raja Ram should have the latitude to state a position without necessarily having to underline what the very basis of his statement is ?
NRao: That's the point - make the distinction between the terms clear going forward. Requesting someone to google it is not enough. If the NSG waiver status is the next primary subject here, it helps everyone if they understand what a clean waiver is, and what an unconditional waiver is. If different parties (e.g. Kakodkar and Mulford) have different opinions on what each of these are, that makes it all the more relevant that both sides' meanings are clear.
Without bothering to understand either party's definition of what clean/unconditional constitute, the pro dealers, the anti dealers and the fence sitters here will all just talk past each other. It will lead to flamewars and moderator intervention. That's why I insist that the definitions be put forward at the start.
It will be a greater day if India does not accept a diluted US sponsored NSG "draft". Or, that will be the day. Clean, unconditional should be defined by India and not the US or anyone else. And considering all of them have accepted the Khan story and done nothing about it, there is no need for India to backtrack.
IMHO of course.
Suraj-ji,
"That's the point". But, but, that point was made a year+ ago!!
Also, asking for definitions is not the issue. "Strawman" and "whinefest" were the issue.
Let it slide.
On AK vs. Mulford, Mulford is backtracking. It will be a real sad day if the GoI keeps quite on this point, since both "clean, unconditional" were words defined by AK. GoI needs to openly bat for for him, their DAE.
