US agrees to keep tests out, DAE wants more

Making some headway on the difficult issues slowing down negotiations on the nuclear deal, the US is said to have agreed to India8217;s demand...

Making some headway on the difficult issues slowing down negotiations on the nuclear deal, the US is said to have agreed to India8217;s demand not to convert New Delhi8217;s policy of unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing into a legally binding commitment in the bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement. In other words, India will have its right to test.

However, Washington has made it clear that it cannot give an assurance against the consequences which may flow from domestic US laws in case New Delhi were to test.

The Department of Atomic Energy DAE is still dissatisfied with this, claiming that these laws do not apply to other nuclear weapon states and should, therefore, not apply to India glossing over the fact that India remains out of the NPT regime.

DAE officials argue that the US can invoke the clause on the right of return and demand all that it has supplied to India in case of a detonation. While this is a difficult provision to implement, the DAE would prefer removal of any such condition.

In response, Washington has said it cannot make any further changes in the law. While both sides made progress in cleaning up the text of the agreement during their negotiations on the margins of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in South Africa last week, sources said, India will have to take a decision on going ahead with the deal factoring in the consequences an Indian test may trigger.

Here, the onus will be on the political leadership to get the DAE on board which continues to delay the start of negotiations with the IAEA on a safeguards agreement despite its two-week-old commitment to the PMO that it would soon slot a date for a meeting in Vienna.

What is important, according to sources, is that a decision to conduct a test is a political one and that New Delhi will not take such a leap without making a strategic judgement on how far this will impact the Indo-US relationship.

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Equally keen to increase the pace at which matters are progressing, key Indian officials feel that a positive consideration of its other demand on granting New Delhi the right to reprocess spent fuel may bring both sides closer to finalising the agreement. Both sides concede that the final understanding on these two issues will come at a political level but before that negotiators have to ensure that differences have been narrowed on other issues. For this to happen, sources said, the two sides have to stop linking every little difference in the agreement to these contentious issues.