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Journalism of Courage
The House International Relations Committee today firmed up the final draft of the civil nuclear cooperation Bill ahead of its crucial session tomorrow. While the Bill does state that India should support the furthering of NPT goals and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, these elements are not binding on New Delhi.
The Bill, which is sponsored by Henry Hyde and Tom Lantos, has a section called the Statement of Policy that calls for ‘‘full participation’’ of India in American efforts to ‘‘dissuade and isolate and, if necessary, sanction and contain Iran‘s efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon capability.’’
On compliance with NPT, the Bill clearly brings out US policy objectives that India should support. It states: ‘‘Sustaining the NPT and strengthening its implementation, particularly its verification and compliance is the keystone of United States Foreign Policy.’’
While the mention of these elements in the Bill is bound to create adverse political reaction in India, those involved in the negotiations point out that these are recommendatory in nature and are not to be interpreted as deal-breakers.
Besides this, there is a string of other criteria laid out in this section to judge India’s compliance to non-proliferation goals which include the Proliferation Security Initiative in which the US wants India to participate. However, these are not linked with the operative portion of the bill that seeks a permanent waiver from the US Atomic Energy Act to enable full civilian nuclear cooperation with India.
The waiver is a separate section that has mandatory conditions which are spelled out in the understanding reached between both countries on July 18 last year—like the framing of a ‘‘credible separation plan’’ by India as well as its commitment to support US efforts towards a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty.
The Bill will be moved on Tuesday in the HIRC where further amendments can be introduced based on the discussions that take place. What India would want is that the mandatory or operative portion of the Bill seeking a waiver is not amended.
While the list of issues mentioned in the non-binding portion of the Bill may be annoying, this is crucial to help gain bi-partisan and majority support. Unless there is such support, the House of Representatives may not take it up immediately despite a mark-up.
There are only 15 working days for the US Congress in July and with the large body of the legislative work at hand, sources said, the Speaker may decide not to take up a Bill that does not enjoy wide support in the HIRC itself. The reason being the discussions on the Bill could take up enormous time of the entire House. For India, time taken is important because it would like all the legislative formalities to be over by August first week. Thereafter, the US Congress will get into election mode.
