Ex-Diplomat Urges India to Seize Nuclear Opportunity

A former U.S. ambassador to India has urged New Delhi to quickly adopt a bilateral nuclear energy deal with Washington or perhaps lose the opportunity altogether, the Times of India reported yesterday (see GSN, April 17).

The deal, first announced nearly three years ago, has faced strong criticism from key supporters of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.  The backlash has effectively frozen plans for New Delhi to purchase U.S. nuclear technology and materials in exchange for placing India’s nuclear activities under international supervision.

If that impasse is not resolved during U.S. President George W. Bush’s final months in office, the entire deal could collapse, said former ambassador Robert Blackwill, now a lobbyist and strong advocate for the energy agreement.

“If I may be characteristically blunt, the next American president will not have the same sunk costs in the U.S.-India civil nuclear agreement that this president and the top of the administration has,” he said Sunday at a conference in New Delhi.  Failure to implement the deal would mean that “India will pay a substantial price in its future energy policy, and its lack of civil nuclear assistance from the outside world,” he added.

Nevertheless, Blackwill recognized the political predicament Singh has faced.

“Coming from a democracy myself that furiously debates such agreements, and in which its own domestic politics are deeply engaged, I do not criticize India and its great democracy for struggling with the domestic political implications of that agreement,” he said.

Whether the deal ultimately moves forward or not, Blackwill expressed hope that the United States would never return to a strategy of “lecturing” India about its nuclear weapons.

Indian leaders “did not have much tolerance before, and they have none now. That would be a substantial irritant in the relationship if it were to occur,” he said.

“The same thing is true of the Comprehensive [Nuclear] Test Ban Treaty, which conceivably could be a high priority for the next American president, depending on how our election turns out,” Blackwill added.  “Again, I hope very much that the administration to come does not wear out its welcome in New Delhi with urgings regarding the CTBT” (Times of India, April 20).

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