A Fractious focus on technical trivia, we have repeatedly underlined on these pages, had marked India’s negotiating style in the implementation of the historic nuclear deal signed by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in July 2005. Until now, at least. After three days of intense but inconclusive nuclear talks last week, we find the US afflicted by a more virulent form of the same disease — a tendency to forget the larger political context in a complex technical negotiation. By refusing to concede India’s right to reprocess spent fuel, the American bureaucracy has thrown a monkey wrench into the drafting of the so-called ‘123 agreement’ that provides the legal basis for civilian nuclear cooperation. The two arguments advanced by the US against reprocessing make no sense. One is that the reprocessing of spent fuel is a long way down the road and therefore could be left out of the 123 agreement for the moment. The Department of Atomic Energy has rightly insisted that without an explicit reference to reprocessing rights, there can be no agreement. Even the paranoids, it is said, have enemies. The DAE points to the experience of the Tarapur nuclear power plant bought from the US in 1963. The terms of that purchase said New Delhi and Washington would make a “joint determination” on reprocessing at an appropriate moment. Later, the US would neither let India reprocess the spent fuel nor take it back. Given that bitter experience, it would be very difficult for any reasonable opinion in India, let alone the DAE, to accept a 123 agreement without an upfront and unambiguous recognition of the right to reprocess. The other American argument about potential opposition in the US Congress to Indian reprocessing is equally unconvincing. Neither the US Atomic Energy Act nor the Hyde Act on nuclear cooperation with India bars reprocessing. The US has also allowed other countries like Japan to reprocess. Above all, there is a strong bipartisan support in the US Congress for a transformation of bilateral relations. That brings us back to the original purposes of the nuclear deal — to end the Indo-US atomic dispute that has persisted for more than three decades and build a genuine strategic partnership. That far-reaching vision of Bush is now in the danger of being lost amidst his administration’s unreasonable position on reprocessing. As he has done so often in India’s nuclear dialogue with the US since 2001, President Bush must now rescue the nuclear deal with India from bureaucratic pettifogging in Washington.
