President George W Bush on Thursday called Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and, besides congratulating Singh on the trust vote win, also reiterated his commitment that the US will do its best to expedite the Indo-US civil nuclear deal. Meanwhile, hectic diplomacy between the US and Pakistan over the safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is showing first signs of relief for India. Pakistan, it is learnt, has told US negotiators that their position in this regard is “evolving”. It had earlier questioned the “urgency” for approving the India-specific safeguards agreement by the 35-member IAEA Board at such a short notice. Islamabad had argued that usually 45 days is given to the members of the Board to study the draft agreement and 30 days for calling a Board meeting. But in India’s case, Islamabad had said that the IAEA secretariat had circulated the draft on July 9 and a Board meeting was called on August 1.Pakistan’s negotiators had also raised the point that the “nuclear facilities” have not been named in the draft safeguards agreement — to which they were asked to refer to India’s “separation plan” where the facilities have been listed. Washington, which is closely addressing Pakistan’s concerns, is hopeful that Islamabad will not block the consensus on the safeguards agreement when the IAEA Board meets on August 1.New Delhi, meanwhile, is readying itself for initiating the talks on the “additional protocol” on safeguards with the IAEA. Dr Anil Kakodkar, Atomic Energy Commission chairman and secretary in the Department of Atomic Energy, is likely to travel to Vienna for the first round of talks. His visit will be followed by a team of negotiators.Washington is working on the members of Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) even as Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon is visiting Germany, which holds the NSG chair. There is a possibility of two meetings of the NSG. The first one is likely to be held within a week or 10 days of the IAEA meeting. A second meeting could follow if necessary.
