India's nuclear deal headed for fiasco
By Praful Bidwai
NEW DELHI - As the tortuous negotiations for the United States-India nuclear
deal enters its final stage, it becomes clear that India seriously
underestimated the discomfort and opposition the agreement would arouse in many
countries because of the special privileges granted to India, largely on New
Delhi's terms.
The emerging situation has thrown Indian policy-makers off-balance. They are
now groping for a strategy to deal effectively with dissenters in the 45-member
Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) which meets next week in Vienna, Austria.
The NSG, a private arrangement, must grant India a waiver from its tough rules
governing nuclear trade before the deal can be completed. The rules prohibit
nuclear commerce with countries
that have not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India is a
non-signatory.
The NSG is due to discuss a US-drafted waiver motion on September 4-5. It
failed at its two-day meeting last week to agree on the proposed exemption.
Several member-states raised objections and moved as many as 50 amendments to
the text. Since the NSG works by consensus, even one member can hold up a
decision.
Many NSG members, led by Austria, New Zealand, Ireland the Netherlands, Norway
and Switzerland, are expected to move amendments to advance the group's
fundamental non-proliferation objectives while granting India a waiver.
These amendments seek to impose three conditions on the exemption: periodic
review of India's compliance with non-proliferation commitments; explicit
exclusion of uranium enrichment and reprocessing of spent-fuel technologies
from what can be exported to India; and most important, no more nuclear trade
with India if this country conducts another nuclear test.
India however insists that the waiver must be "clean and unconditional".
Meanwhile, the US is likely to redraft the motion to meet some of the probable
objections and reservations.
However, India and the US have started a new gambit, based on mutual accusation
and posturing. Indian officials privately say the US did not pull its weight in
lobbying the dissenting states hard enough, or that it "sabotaged" the NSG
proceedings by firing from the dissenters' shoulders.
The Americans say that India is being unreasonably inflexible because it does
not realize that many NSG members will not go along with the old [September 21]
draft. There are limits to how much Washington can push them. Something has to
give. India says it will reject anything but "cosmetic" changes in the old US
draft.
"It's hard to believe that the US would sabotage the deal at this stage, after
having initiated the deal and gone out of its way to placate India," says
physicist M V Ramana of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in the
Environment and Development at Bangalore who is a noted commentator and author
on nuclear proliferation issues.
He adds: "In any case, India was involved in negotiating every phrase in the
resolutions brought before the IAEA and the NSG. It's futile for India to blame
the US. It was at best naive for it to trust Washington to do everything at the
NSG."
Unless the NSG's next meeting grants India a waiver, the deal is likely to miss
the tight US Congress deadline for its ratification of a bilateral India-US
agreement, which is a necessary precondition for the deal to take effect.
The "123 agreement", so called because it concerns Section 123 of the US Atomic
Energy Act, 1954, was signed last month to enable nuclear commerce with India.
Congress is scheduled to meet beginning September 8 and adjourn on September 26
before it is re-elected in November.
However, even if the NSG approves a waiver next week, the deal might not make
it in time to the US Congress for its ratification.
"It's not going to happen," Congressman Gary Ackerman told The Times of India
at Denver, Colorado, where he is attending the Democratic National Convention.
"There simply isn't enough time."
According to Ackerman, the duration of the next Congress session falls short of
the 30-day resting period the deal must have under current rules. Although it
is technically possible to waive the rules, this will mean that Congress agrees
to debate the 123 agreement rather than just pass an "up-and-down" or yes or no
vote.
And if the agreement is opened up for debate, said Ackerman, "you can bet that
there are some lawmakers who want to bring in amendments".
Such amendments are expected to bring the 123 agreement in conformity with a
legislation that Congress passed in December 2006, called the Henry J Hyde Act,
which imposes numerous conditions upon India, including an end to nuclear
cooperation with the US if India conducts a nuclear test.
Uncertainty over the deal's fate has emboldened NSG dissenters to go public.
Phil Goff, New Zealand's disarmament and arms control minister, has said in a
statement that "many countries spoke in favor of amendments" to the US draft at
the last NSG.
Goff said: "A large number of countries, big and small, expressed views similar
to New Zealand's that there needed to be compatibility between the US-India
agreement and the goals of the NSG ... the discussions last week were robust
and constructive."
Goff clarified that "while New Zealand remains a strong advocate of the NPT and
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and would welcome India's accession to these
... we have not included these in our package of proposals".
India refuses to sign the treaty and will not accept any "prescriptive" advice
to do so. While no NSG member expects India to sign the treaties, they want New
Delhi to show some willingness to accommodate non-proliferation concerns.
The first signs of discomfort with the deal appeared at the August 1 meeting of
the IAEA's board of governors, when many states expressed their reservations
about the agency's safeguards (inspections) agreement with India, but finally
approved it. The reservations were centered on guarantees of uninterrupted fuel
supplies and on India's right to take "corrective measures" in case these are
disrupted.
Even so, Austria, Costa Rica, the Netherlands and Norway made it clear in a
joint statement that the board's decision only endorses the safeguards
agreement, but "in no way prejudge[s] the decision on a possible India-specific
exemption in the NSG".
Austria even questioned the description of nuclear energy as an "efficient,
clean and sustainable energy source", which lays the preambular basis for the
safeguards agreement.
"Although the statement was a clear warning, Indian negotiators ignored it,"
says a high Indian official familiar with the talks on the deal, who insisted
on anonymity. "They thought a combination of US strong-arm pressures and
India's new 'with-us-or-against-us' diplomacy would do the trick."
At the NSG meeting last week, opposition to the deal grew. A bloc of six states
emerged (comprising Austria, Ireland, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway and
Switzerland) which acted in concert and issued a joint statement. This said
their amendments were "based on concepts already enshrined in UN Security
Council resolutions, in domestic legislation of [NSG member-states], and in
bilateral nuclear supply agreements which [they] have concluded over the
years".
These statements took Indian officials by surprise. They had expected the NSG
meeting to be a roaring success and the crowning of world recognition of
India's "arrival on the global stage". They now describe its deliberations as a
"blow" to India, even a "debacle".
Hectic and tough negotiations are reportedly in progress between the US and
India on the draft of a new waiver text.
"The US will probably try to persuade India to accept at least one of the three
proposed conditions, namely, exclusion of enrichment and reprocessing
technology," says Ramana. "It is hard to say if India will agree to this while
accepting a periodic review of its non-proliferation commitments and cessation
of cooperation in case of an Indian nuclear test."
The Indian government has repeatedly said the deal does not, and cannot,
compromise its "sovereign" right to test.
"But it seems even more unlikely," adds Ramana, "that the NSG dissenters will
be satisfied with such a modified draft. The chances of the deal going through
before the present term of the US Congress ends seem low."
Whatever happens, one thing is clear. Unless the movers of the amendments
calling for such conditions can be persuaded, cajoled or coerced into dropping
them, India must eat humble pie, agree to a compromise, and make the best of a
bad deal. Or, India can walk away and lose the deal altogether - at least in
the George W Bush administration's term.
Neither prospect is pleasant for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who took his
government to the brink by staking his personal stature on the deal and losing
the support of the left parties, substituting it with an alliance with the less
reliable and opportunistic Samajwadi Party.
If the deal collapses, Manmohan's position in the ruling coalition could become
shaky. If he signs a compromised agreement, he will be accused of being a
"sellout".
IPS correspondent Praful Bidwai is a noted peace activist and co-founder
of the Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament, based in New Delhi.
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