The Hindu : Front Page : India studying revised NSG draft

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Saturday, Aug 30, 2008
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India studying revised NSG draft

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: A revised version of the draft waiver that the United States circulated to the Nuclear Suppliers Group last month was handed over to India on Thursday and was still being studied by a team of Indian officials till late Friday evening.

Among those involved in the exercise, which is being led by National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan, are Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar and other top officials from the Department of Atomic Energy, Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of External Affairs, including R.B. Grover and D.B. Venkatesh Varma who have been part of India’s negotiating team with the U.S. since 2005.

Officials familiar with the issue refused to provide any information on the contents of the new draft, or the changes, if any, India was seeking to make. It is not clear, for example, if modified language is being exchanged back and forth between New Delhi and Washington or whether the entire drafting process might require one further iteration.

With the 45-nation NSG set to meet again in plenary session on August 4, time would appear to be running out for both the U.S. and India. “Member states will need at least five or six days to study the draft,” a European diplomat told The Hindu on Friday, adding that if the draft were not put into circulation by Saturday, the September 4-5 meeting of the nuclear club might have to be postponed by a week. Another diplomat said that while smaller countries “may not need very much time to get high-level political decisions as we have smaller bureaucracies than others,” countries like Japan and China might well need more time.

While the Bush administration is keen to secure NSG clearance next week and send the 123 agreement for Congressional approval on September 8, Indian officials say their own principal priority is not speed but ensuring the soundness of the draft waiver.

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