No U.S.-Indian Deal This Month, Official Says

Bush administration officials are losing optimism that a detailed U.S.-Indian nuclear trade agreement can be completed before next month’s summit of the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations, Reuters reported today (see GSN, May 17).

Earlier this month, a State Department release said the two sides deal would “reach a final agreement” this month, but Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns has postponed a visit to New Delhi, according to Reuters. 

Instead, U.S. and Indian technical experts met in London yesterday to try to iron out serious disagreements in the deal which calls for the United States sell nuclear equipment and material to India in exchange for the South Asian nuclear power placing its civilian nuclear sector under international monitoring.

President George W. Bush signed a law late last year exempting India from most U.S. nuclear nonproliferation laws, a move required for the deal to advance because the United States bars nuclear trade with nations that are not party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and do not place all their nuclear sites under international supervision.

Still, Indian officials have objected to some of the remaining provisions, including a measure that would enable Washington to demand the return of its technology if India tests another nuclear weapon.

U.S. officials had hoped that U.S. President George W. Bush could trumpet the deal’s success at the June G-8 summit in Germany, but that now seems improbable, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher told Reuters.

“We found there were some differences on these issues that we thought we had really gone a long way to solve,” he said (Carol Giacomo, Reuters/Yahoo!News, May 21).

Meanwhile, Russia has irritated some U.S. officials by delivering a batch of fresh fuel last month to two Indian nuclear reactors (see GSN, March 20, 2006).

The reactors at Tarapur have received the fuel but have not loaded it, Reuters reported.

Nonproliferation advocates argued that the sale violates export guidelines set by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group designed to curb nuclear proliferation by banning the transfer of nuclear technology to non-NPT nations.

NSG rules, however, permit the sale to such countries if a safety hazard can be averted by refueling a reactor, according to Reuters.

U.S. officials had asked Russia to delay the fuel supplies to give the group time to modify its rules to allow the supply of U.S. materials to India, but Moscow opted not to wait, Reuters reported.

 “This kind of activity should not take place, in our view, until the NSG has acted,” said one U.S. official.  “It's not good precedent.”

“There is no immediate safety concern [at Tarapur]... but you could make a case in the next year or two that there could be safety problem”, the official added.

Private nonproliferation experts have argued that the reactors should be shut down, not refueled, if they are potentially dangerous, Reuters reported.

“Russia has clearly violated NSG rules," said Daryl Kimball, head of the Arms Control Association.  “This is a further step towards the erosion of the NSG guidelines and the United States must speak out more strongly against Russia and India pursuing this” (Reuters, Hindustan Times, April 26).

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