Last-minute hitch over US-India
deal By Praful Bidwai
NEW DELHI - High official-level talks
between the United States and India to clinch the
nuclear cooperation deal initialled in July 2005
have failed to narrow mutual differences and
produce an agreement.
The negotiations,
held last week between the US team led by Under
Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, and on the
Indian side by Foreign Secretary Shivshankar
Menon, were scheduled to last two days. They were
extended to Saturday, but did not lead to a
"123
agreement" - a reference to Section 123 of the US
Atomic Energy Act which has to be amended to
permit nuclear commerce with India by making a
one-time exception for it within the global
nuclear non-proliferation regime.
The
nuclear deal may come up at the June 6-8 Group of
Eight summit in Germany, where Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh will meet President George W Bush
on the sidelines. But it is not clear if Bush will
discuss it in any depth, especially if he leaves
Heiligendamm early.
India put a positive
spin on the talks by saying they were "intensive,
productive and constructive" and expressed"
optimism" that a final "123 agreement" will soon
be struck.
The main differences between
the two governments pertain to what would happen
to US supplies of nuclear fuel and equipment if
India conducted another nuclear explosion, and to
India's "right" to reprocess imported fuel after
it has been burned in Indian
reactors.
"These differences appear to be
sharpened or become more focused in recent weeks,"
said Achin Vanaik, a political science professor
at Delhi University and an activist of the
Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace. "They
certainly overshadow other differences on issues
such as sequencing of steps India must take before
the deal goes into effect."
Vanaik said
that unless both sides showed a remarkable degree
of flexibility, the deal won't go through in the
near future. "At the moment, there are few signs
of real flexibility."
India insists on
guarantees that the supplies be maintained under
all circumstances. But under US law, no nuclear
material can be sold or transferred to a country
which has conducted a nuclear test and not signed
the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
This position was reiterated last December
by the US Congress, which passed the Henry J Hyde
United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy
Cooperation Act of 2006 (Hyde Act). The Americans
also say they have a "right" to demand that India
return all equipment and material supplied to it
in case it conducts a nuclear blast.
Equally thorny is the issue of
reprocessing of imported fuel to extract
plutonium. Plutonium can be used both to make
nuclear bombs and to fuel a special kind of
reactor known as the fast-breeder, which produces
more nuclear fuel than it consumes.
India
says it must have the "right" to reprocess spent
fuel to run its ambitious fast-breeder program,
which will eventually lead to a "third-generation"
or third-stage reactor based on thorium. India is
believed to have less than 1% of the world
reserves of natural uranium but more than 30% of
the global reserves of thorium.
In recent
weeks and months, several serving and former
officials of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE)
have written or spoken about India's planned
"three-stage" program as unchangeable, immutable
and indispensable to India's energy needs.
The day the nuclear talks began in New
Delhi last week, a national newspaper carried two
long opinion pieces arguing this position by
former DAE chiefs, one of them a member of the
policy-making Atomic Energy Commission.
"It is doubtful if India needs nuclear
power at all," argues M V Ramana, a physicist and
independent energy expert attached to the Center
for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and
Development, Bangalore.
"Nuclear
electricity is exorbitantly expensive,
unacceptably hazardous and fraught with long-lived
radioactive wastes. But leaving that aside, nobody
has proved the viability of the thorium reactor on
an industrial scale. Even the 'second-stage'
fast-breeder has proved a failure, not just in
India, but also in France, which invested heavily
in that technology."
Yet, India's hardline
nuclear scientist-engineers' lobby has prevailed
on the political leadership on reprocessing, as
also on sticking to the letter of the July, 2005,
agreement which pledges "full nuclear cooperation"
between India and the US.
It is not clear
if the lobby is generally resistant to any
restrictions on the "right" to reprocess, or is
especially allergic to its denial in the present
case because it fears that that will attract
safeguards (inspections) not only on reprocessing
plants, but on downstream facilities that use
material produced in the plants.
The fact
is, the Indian government has indicated that it
won't budge on the issue. If the US could agree to
allow Japan and a Western European consortium
called Euratom to reprocess spent fuel, it should
do the same for India.
This, some analysts
say, may not be easy to sell to the US Congress
because India is not an NPT signatory. Congress
must approve the "123 agreement". In practical
terms, this may require a special certification
from the president that the reprocessed material
won't be diverted to military uses. This is a
tricky issue.
During the talks, the US
proposed that India leave the reprocessing issue
out of the "123 agreement". But India rejected
this, citing its past experience with two
heavy-water reactors donated and built by the US
at Tarapur in the 1960s. After India conducted a
nuclear test in 1974, the US neither let India
reprocess the spent fuel, nor took it back.
India also reiterated the US assurance
that "nothing in the Hyde Act" prevents it from
implementing its "obligations under the July 18,
2005, and the March 2, 2006, Joint Statements",
and asked the administration to stick to this
assurance.
"A resolution of the
differences will need a high-level political
decision," said Vanaik. "Such a decision can only
be based on or derived from the broader purpose of
the India-US nuclear deal, which is to consolidate
a strategic partnership between the US and India,
largely on Washington's terms, as part of its
global system of alliances."
Whether and
how soon Bush and Singh will reaffirm that
rationale and push the deal through in the face of
their domestic opposition remains to be seen. But
it won't be easy to silence the critics.
Meanwhile, lobbyists of the Indian
diaspora living in several countries which are
members of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers' Group
have stepped up their advocacy in favor of the
deal through email campaigns, seminars and
meetings with legislators.
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