NEW DELHI/WASHINGTON, 3 May 2007 — Top US State Department official Nicholas Burns will come to India this month to try to wrap up a landmark nuclear pact after talks here achieved “extensive progress,” a US official said on Tuesday.
Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon held “excellent” and “positive” meetings with senior US officials including Burns and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, according to State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. “We look forward to resolving the outstanding issues in the weeks ahead,” he said in a statement.
Burns, the US undersecretary of state for political affairs, will travel to India “in the second half of May to reach a final agreement,” McCormack said. “Undersecretary Burns and Foreign Secretary Menon also agreed to continue our work together to bring stability and peace to the region,” he added. Menon said after his talks that he was “happy” with the “very productive discussions.” Looking forward to Burns’ visit, he said: “As far as I’m concerned, this is doable and we want to do it as quickly as possible.” Indian Embassy spokesman Rahul Chhabra said Menon and Burns discussed “the entire gamut of Indo-US relations, including the civilian nuclear issue.” The upbeat US tone signaled a prospective breakthrough for the nuclear deal, which is due to take full effect next year but which has lapsed since it was struck in July 2005.
The Indian Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has, meanwhile, stressed that its reprocessing rights should remain intact following the deal. “We need to have explicit provision enabling reprocessing in all bilateral cooperation agreements which India might sign in future,” DAE told Parliamentary Committee on Science and Technology headed by P.G. Narayanan. “In fact, pursuit of closed fuel cycle is a matter of policy for US as the policy ensures fuel resource sustainability and also provides for credible waste management by reducing waste volumes,” DAE said.
Describing the issue of reprocessing spent fuel as a serious matter, several nuclear experts have described DAE’s concern as justified. United States’ stand on this issue needs clarification. India does not want to be faced with the situation where it can neither reprocess spent imported fuel nor give it back to the supplier. However, if US demand is limited to not supplying India with reprocessing technology and not allowing India to reprocess the fuel they supply, then New Delhi can face a difficult situation, sources said. As in this case India would use its preprocessors and reprocess spent fuel bought from a third country.
According to a report, “The committee also desires that the DAE should ensure that in future, the country is able to pursue its nuclear activities, whether civilian or military, as per its own national interests.”
Supporting the Indo-US nuclear deal, the report said: “With the fast depleting conventional sources of energy, the agreement with the United States would result in a quantum jump in our nuclear energy generating capacity and would provide the much-needed energy security to the country.
“Cooperation in nuclear research activities should also increase and India should be able to join international mainstream and occupy its rightful place among the top countries in the nuclear community,” the committee said.
In an opinion piece in Sunday’s Washington Post, Burns predicted “Within a generation, Americans may view India as one of our two or three most important strategic partners.”
Burns said that Washington considers the nuclear deal, which the US Congress approved overwhelmingly in December, as the hallmark of the new warmer relations. “When fully implemented in 2008, this initiative will permit American and international companies to begin peaceful civilian nuclear cooperation with India for the first time in more than a generation,” he said.
But differences have persisted, chiefly over a clause which says the United States would withdraw civil nuclear fuel supplies and equipment if India breaches its unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing.
Menon last week sought to dispel fears from Indian critics who say the agreement will hamper the country’s nuclear weapons program, nine years after a round of Indian atomic tests sparked a tit-for-tat response from Pakistan.
“Whatever we do with the US will not affect our nuclear strategic program,” he said in a report tabled in the Indian parliament last week.
Indian experts warn that New Delhi must act fast on the nuclear deal, arguing that with the US presidential elections looming next year the accord could soon drop off the radar screen in Washington.
