End of long nuke winter

Bill doesn8217;t come in the way of Bush meeting July 18 commitments, that8217;s the sense in Delhi as Govt prepares for Parliament

Amid all the emphasis on the 8220;extraneous8221; elements by detractors of the nuclear deal, the best news for India from the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Cooperation Bill is that the waiver from the stringent US non-proliferation laws is unconditional and the rest are desirables which do not directly impact the implementation of the July 18 commitments.

In fact, sources said, the US has conveyed that the Bill does not constrain it from fulfilling all its commitments, including assurances on permanent fuel supply.

While officials went into a huddle yesterday going through the fineprint of the Bill, today was spent explaining the outcome to the political leadership ahead of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee8217;s statement in Parliament on Monday.

It8217;s learnt that Congress president Sonia Gandhi was apprised of the acceptability of the Bill to India as one that did not prevent Washington from going ahead with the deal as agreed with New Delhi. She is expected to be briefed on the details by Indian Ambassador to US Ronen Sen who is in town to clarify the fine print before the matter is discussed in Parliament.

The two key issues that will be firmly put down in the Indo-US 123 bilateral agreement will be India8217;s right to reprocess spent fuel and permanent assurances for fuel supplies. For India, sources said, this is critical and the sense from Washington is that the Bill does not come in the way.

It8217;s learnt that Department of Atomic Energy head Anil Kakodkar will be in tomorrow for a crucial meeting in South Block. The objective, sources said, is to get all key stakeholders of the deal on board ahead of the debate in Parliament. Already, Kakodkar has called for a meeting on December 15 with the scientists who had written against the deal to the Prime Minister when the Senate version of the Bill had come out.

The government is clear that what the deal sought was to get the rights of a Nuclear Weapons State without joining the Non Proliferation Treaty. The key concern was to get these rights without any conditions or commitments outside the July 18 understanding. The House and Senate versions of the Bill had conditions that made India uncomfortable, a point explicitly addressed in PM8217;s August 17 speech.

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However, the final Bill takes many of these riders into the non-binding sections making the waiver unconditional. India needed waiver from laws that did not allow US to enter into such an agreement with a country that has detonated a nuclear device after 1978, maintains an active nuclear weapons programme and does not allow all its reactors under permanent IAEA safeguards. The Bill gives these waiver and attaches no fresh conditions.