The Hindu : National : Testing issue main stumbling block

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 06, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

National

National

Testing issue main stumbling block

Siddharth Varadarajan

Nobody wants a third meeting, say Indian officials at the Nuclear Suppliers Group

Chinese play an ‘interesting’ role
Americans not as energetic

Vienna: With the United States reportedly reaching an agreement with the Nuclear Supplies Group sceptics on issues like the export of sensitive nuclear technology to India, the question of what the cartel should do in case India were ever to detonate a nuclear device again took centre-stage as the principal obstacle in the way of America’s proposed exemption for India from the NSG’s export rules.

Essentially, the critics, led by the Group of Six ‘like-minded countries’ want the waiver to be made strictly conditional on India not violating the non-proliferation commitments it had made in order to get the waiver in the first place. The G-6 was not insisting on an explicit mention of nuclear testing, a diplomat from one the countries involved 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].”

Though at least one diplomat was quoted by Reuters as saying the question of access to enrichment and reprocessing equipment and technology had been sorted out by the U.S. providing an assurance that this would be excluded from the final waiver, Indian officials said they were not aware of this proposal. Several countries, including the Group of Six — Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway and New Zealand — want these technologies to be excluded from the purview of the waiver, something India has opposed from the outset.

Noting that the six were receiving support from different countries on different issues, a G-6 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.” And although the U.S. sent a more senior diplomat to lead its delegation to the NSG this time — Under Secretary of State William Burns — eyebrows were raised when he left town after a day, leaving his junior colleague, John D. Rood, in charge of the proceedings.

On their part, the Indian delegation here acknowledged the going was tough.

“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.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National