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Journalism of Courage
India’s vote for the European move at the International Atomic Energy Agency yesterday is likely to shift the focus of the American debate on nuclear cooperation with India from Iranian proliferation to the size and shape of New Delhi’s own nuclear arsenal, leading experts here say.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Strobe Talbott, Deputy Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration, said the Iran issue might have ‘‘created a static’’ in Indo-US relations, but will not undermine the nuclear pact.
‘‘There is no way on god’s green earth, that there will be significant opposition to the nuclear deal with India,’’ Talbott said. He, however, pointed to the discomfort within American arms control community that the Bush Administration has not got India to accept any restraints on its nuclear arsenal.
‘‘Having won the nuclear deal’’, Talbott said, ‘‘India should not try to over win’’. He was suggesting that it was in India’s own interest to address the question ‘‘how much is enough’’ for its atomic arsenal.
‘‘My hope is that the Government of India will try to find a way to deal with the core issue that arose in 1998’’ on the kind of nuclear weapon power that New Delhi wants to be.
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Left, Right slam Govt on vote against Iran
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• CPI(M): The govt has caved in to US pressure, gone back on stand |
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Having got what it wanted—full civilian nuclear energy cooperation with the international community—India ‘‘must move to a new stage in its strategic policy that is commensurate with its ambition to become a great power and a member of the global board of directors’’, Talbott said.
To convince the critics of the deal, India must come up with ‘‘more enlightened answers on how much is enough’’ for its credible minimum nuclear deterrent, Talbott suggested. After India’s nuclear tests in May 1998, Talbott was in charge of American nuclear negotiations with India and had nearly ten rounds of talks with the then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh.
While critics in India have slammed the nuclear deal signed in July by PM Manmohan Singh and President George W Bush for its potential to ‘‘cap’’ India’s nuclear arsenal, non-proliferation experts bemoan precisely the absence of such a ceiling on India’s nuclear weapon capabilities.
