U.S. Urges India to Resolve Nuclear Impasse

Warning of “practical problems” should delays continue, a U.S. official pressed Indian leaders yesterday to try to gain domestic political support for a bilateral nuclear trade agreement, the Indo-Asian News Service reported (see GSN, Jan. 25).

“It is practical for India to complete the entire process this year,” U.S. Ambassador to India David Mulford told reporters in New Delhi.

The agreement has been slowed by criticism from key supporters of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s coalition government.  Four communist parties have threatened to remove their backing for Singh, thus forcing early elections, if he tries to implement the deal.

The trade pact would enable India to purchase U.S. nuclear materials and technology in exchange for allowing international monitoring of the nation’s civil nuclear activities.  Before the deal can be implemented, the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group must agree to exempt India from long-standing guidelines that currently bar sales of key nuclear technologies to nations outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that do not allow full international oversight of their nuclear activities. 

Singh’s immediate hurdle, however, is to eliminate the communists’ political threat.  Once that obstacle is overcome, the rest of the deal conditions could fall into place quickly, Mulford said.

“If [India] does not finish this time, it will have to wait for a new [U.S.] Congress and a new administration in the U.S.,” he said.  “There will be practical problems.”

Mulford said the United States was ready to help, but would not meddle with Indian politics.

“We are not pushing.  We are patiently waiting for India to complete its process and conclude a safeguards pact with the International Atomic Energy Agency,” he said.  “The U.S. respects India’s political process.  It underlines our keen desire not to interfere in the domestic political process” (Mudassir Rizwan, Indo-Asian News Service/IndianMuslims.info, Jan. 28).

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