Ahead of NSG’s Rio meet, India in key N-talks today

Official-level consultations will have two joint secretaries from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), one dealing with the Americas division, the other with disarmament. They will hold consultations with their counterparts from the three countries.

Washington will be represented by Donald Camp, the US principal deputy assistant secretary for South and Central Asian affairs.

Sources say the meeting will lay the grounds for a possible interaction next month between Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran and US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns.

NSG members have been cautious in their response, preferring to wait for the US to act first. However, the understanding is that the movement in the NSG could actually hasten matters in the US Congress, as that would mean that other countries may be able to trade with India. So the effort will be to broaden support for India.

Top French officials say open support from Germany and Italy will go a long way in getting rest of Europe on board. The two countries are “very important” for France to succeed in lobbying for India within the NSG.

Besides this, senior officials here confirmed that France had taken up the issue of supporting India in the NSG with Beijing in its consultations as part of their bilateral strategic dialogue.

Gourgault-Montagne, diplomatic advisor to the French President, met his Chinese counterpart last week and raised the issue of supporting India’s case at the NSG meeting.

However, France feels India too has a dialogue mechanism with China and must put this channel to good use. India had raised this with Beijing and may be looking at a reminder ahead of the Rio meet.

Officials closely associated with the effort here say there is no specific objection against India. The question being asked is how this will impact the non-proliferation regime which has worked well so far.

The case being made out by the three countries is that an exemption will end India’s nuclear isolation and would, in fact, strengthen the non-proliferation system. As it is, India follows strict non-proliferation norms despite not being a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty.

While the good news is that no NSG member has said a firm ‘no’ to the proposal put forward by the US in the consultative meeting in March, there has not been a significant addition to the list of countries openly supporting India’s case.

However, countries like Brazil—that had given up the nuclear weapons option—have not voiced a protest, which is again good for India.

The hope in Paris now is that at least Berlin will come out in support after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit there. Russia’s supply of fuel to Tarapur may have cautioned some of the European countries.