Post-Ghauri mantra: US chants restraint

This is the first Indo-US encounter after the new BJP government was sworn inlast month and it was described by sources in the ministry of external affairs as "indepth and wide-ranging." Economic issues took up crucial time, with the US side hoping the government would open up the insurance sector as well as pay more attention to infrastructure projects such as power.

But both sides maintained a status quo on their respective views on a permanent seat for India in the Security Council. New Delhi reiterated bluntly its legitimacy for such a seat, and the US team replied with its timeworn response: it said it was fully familiar with and appreciated New Delhi’s position, but that Asia must finally decide who it should send as a representative to an expanded Security Council. Significantly, the presence of Robert Einhorn, the deputy assistant secretary for non-proliferation in the US State department, seems to have added meat to the discussions.

Einhorn flew into Delhi independently of the Richardson-led team, skipping the Bangladesh part of the US South Asian tour yesterday.

It wasEinhorn’s suggestion to India at an innocuous seminar at the University of Pennsylvania last year to "formalise its nuclear restraint" in exchange for civilian nuclear cooperation with the US, that laid the seeds of the still-nascent bilateral security dialogue.

Gujral agreed to reopen the nuclear issue in his discussions with Clinton last September. But it is Einhorn’s continuing pressence in talks with the BJP government that implies both sides have agreed to revive these crucial discussions.