India's population is of the same magnitude as that of China, and, in time, India has proved the potential to become a major U.S. trading partner. And as it is expected that U.S. strategic interest will become increasingly more focused on Asia as this area is a rich source of oil and gas, and contains regions of extreme political instability.
President George Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed upon a framework for the nuclear deal in 2005, under which the United States will provide energy-starved India civilian nuclear fuel and technology.
This civil nuclear co-operation between the United States and India will offer enormous strategic and economic benefits to both countries, including enhanced energy security, a more environmentally friendly energy source, greater economic opportunities and more robust nonproliferation efforts.
This joint declaration was a bold and radical move that was clearly motivated by and reflects the mutual interests of both states in counterbalancing the rise of Chinese power in the Asian region. It also promises other potential security benefits, notably enhancing U.S.-Indian counterterrorism co-operation.In these respects, this joint declaration has laid the foundation for promoting the long-term strategic interests of the United States. But somehow in India, there also lies a perception that the Indo-US nuclear deal is going to affect India's credible nuclear deterrent and will 'force the government to surrender the sovereign right of the country to make nuclear weapons'.
As per the history the United States and India entered into a peaceful nuclear co-operation agreement in 1963. Under that agreement, the United States supplied India with two light-water reactors at Tarapur and the enriched uranium to fuel those plants. Spurred, among other things, by India’s “peaceful” nuclear test in 1974, the United States enacted the 1978 Nonproliferation Act, which amended the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.
This new legislation required that, in order to receive future nuclear exports from the United States, non-nuclear-weapon states such as India needed to place all of their peaceful nuclear activities under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—so-called full-scope safeguards.
India refused to accept this condition, and significantly U.S. nuclear co-operation with New Delhi, including nuclear fuel supplies to Tarapur, ceased in 1980. The 1963 peaceful nuclear co-operation agreement between India and the United States terminated in 1993 without replacement. In response to India’s nuclear weapons tests in 1998, the United States imposed a series of strict economic and financial sanctions but has since then substantially relaxed these restrictions.
However, this 2005 landmark agreement, marks a notable warming of U.S.-India relations once again, and is expected to lift the U.S. moratorium on nuclear trade with India.
As expected, the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) recently ended a two-day meeting without reaching to an agreement on lifting a 34-year-old embargo on nuclear trade with India.
The Nuclear Suppliers Group, which controls the export and sale of nuclear technology worldwide, had gathered to discuss a US draft proposal on a statement on civil nuclear co-operation with India. Following a full session and a series of bilateral talks, group issued a brief statement saying only: “Participating governments exchanged views in a constructive manner, and agreed to meet again in the near future to continue their deliberations.”
Diplomats who attended the discussions signaled that the US-India deal had run into stiff resistance among member states, with some setting conditions for giving approval.
The United States wants a special waiver of NSG rules for India, which refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), allowing Washington and New Delhi to co-operate in the civilian nuclear field. A number of countries openly expressed reservations about the agreement between the United States and India.
They require convincing evidence for NSG so that an exception from the full-scope safeguards requirement for India is fully acceptable to the worldwide community and will not lead to an erosion of the principle that full-scope safeguards will remain a mandatory condition for nuclear trade with non-nuclear-weapon states.
At this moment, nobody expects the safeguards agreement process to take too long, but equally nobody is quite sure how long this could take.
Still the U.S. Acting Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, John Rood, remained optimistic and said that he was very optimistic and hoped to make a quick progress in this regard. It is only so because the U.S. timetable wants to wrap up the NSG exemption and submit documents for the final up-down vote to the U.S. Congress by early 2008 as a short legislative calendar before the November 4 U.S. election could complicate its passage.
Under NSG rules, all nuclear trade with India is banned because it refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), developed atomic bombs in secret and conducted its first nuclear test in 1974. The U.S. argues that the new deal will bring India into the NPT fold after 34 years of isolation and help combat global warming by allowing the world’s largest democracy to develop low-polluting nuclear energy.
Expecting a subsequent arms race between India and Pakistan, after this approval, experts believe that the suppliers group can say yes to nuclear trade with India only if two simple conditions were agreed upon. First, India must sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, a step already taken by 178 other countries and every member state of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. And secondly, India must agree to halt production of nuclear material for weapons. Such a ban would not require India to give up the atomic weapons it has or prevent it from building more weapons with nuclear material previously produced, according to the lawmakers.
By shutting down the manufacture of new plutonium and highly enriched uranium, India “would prove to the international community that opening up nuclear commerce would not assist, either directly or indirectly, its nuclear weapons program.
As it is said that the Nuclear Suppliers Group was formed in response to India’s illegal 1974 nuclear test and that it would be undermining its mission if it approved the deal as written. Moreover, also if the group agrees to the deal as is and breaches its own rules, “countries such as Iran and North Korea would certainly use the precedent to their advantage.” If the NSG endorses a special full-scope exception for India while keeping the rest of the regime in place, this could counter concerns that the Bush initiative will result in a serious erosion of the nuclear supplier rules.
On the other hand, if other suppliers, particularly non-nuclear-weapon states, insist on maintaining full-scope safeguards as a condition of supply to India, the whole initiative of the Bush Government could fail.
Though this is the toughest call, particularly to get it through the NSG brass, still this has remained as one of the trickiest parts of the entire nuclear deal.
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