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Nuclear deal staring at NSG dead-end

Siddharth Varadarajan

Vienna: With the Group of Six like-minded states continuing to insist on a clear “cause and effect” link between a future Indian atomic test and the termination of nuclear supplies, the Nuclear Suppliers Group was all set to remain deadlocked over the United States proposal to allow nuclear commerce with India.

At the time of going to press, the NSG plenary had slipped into its third recess of the day in order to enable further consultations between the U.S. and the six hold-outs.

The six countries holding out for tougher conditions to be written into the draft proposal granting India an exemption from the NSG’s rules are Austria, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, the Netherlands and Switzerland. But the coalition is a shifting one and the six are getting support from other countries on some of the demands they are making. At the same time, the number of countries pushing for approval of the exemption has also grown, say diplomats. Under the 45-nation cartel’s rules of consensus decision-making, however, even one country has the right to block a decision.

A lengthy meeting between the U.S. and the G-6 ended inconclusively late on Thursday night with the latter refusing to accept any dilution of their demands. “There are still very different views on both sides. We made some progress on minor issues but on the principal questions, there has been no movement,” a diplomat from one of the six countries told The Hindu. “I can’t see any way to bridge the divide,” he added. “Not unless a major shift in position [by India and the U.S.] occurs.”

The statement by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee reiterating India’s disarmament commitments and its unilateral, voluntary moratorium was warmly welcomed by most NSG members but failed to break the deadlock. “We welcome it but it is not enough to resolve the outstanding difficulties with the main text [of the waiver],” said a diplomat from a G-6 country.

“Voluntary declarations do not have the same value as agreed NSG text,” he added.

The single biggest obstacle is the demand of the six that the waiver for India be made strictly conditional on not violating the non-proliferation commitments it had made in order to get the waiver in the first place. The group of like-minded nations was not insisting on an explicit mention of nuclear testing, the diplomat said. “But we are giving this exemption on the basis of these commitments and if those commitments are no longer being observed, the basis for the exemption will no longer be there.”

Automatic cut-off of supplies in the event of India abandoning its moratorium on nuclear testing “has been our absolute bottom line from the beginning” said the diplomat, “and there is no question of it being dropped.” At the same time, he conceded that more than India, it was the “big supplier nations” like Russia and France that were opposing automaticity of termination. “We know the U.S. is committed to terminating supplies [if India tests] but we don’t want to leave the decision within the NSG to each individual PG [participating government].”

The other big issue remaining is access to enrichment and reprocessing equipment and technology. The six want so-called sensitive nuclear technologies to be excluded from the purview of the waiver.

China’s position

Noting that the six were receiving support from different countries on different issues, the diplomat described the position taken by China as “interesting.” “After remaining silent all this time, the Chinese were quite active in the [plenary] room yesterday [Thursday] and not in a way that was helpful to the U.S. position [on the waiver],” he said.

Another diplomat from a smaller country backing the India waiver said the Americans had not been as energetic “in a sustained sort of way” as they might have been during and before the NSG sessions last month and this week.

Asked for his assessment of the American role, the G-6 diplomat concurred, saying the U.S. “seems to have picked off all the easy targets from the list first and left the difficult countries for last.”

On its part, the Indian delegation here acknowledged the going was tough to impossible. “If there is no agreement [Friday], I don’t see much scope for this going into another round.” “We are not talking about a third meeting. I don’t think anybody is, because if it can’t be done now, it can’t be done then,” official sources told The Hindu.

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