U.S.-Indian Nuclear Talks to Resume

Countering earlier reports, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns plans to arrive in New Delhi Thursday for two days of talks on the U.S.-Indian nuclear trade deal, the Associated Press reported Sunday (see GSN, May 24).

Anonymous officials recently said Burns would not visit Delhi as he announced he would earlier this month following a Washington visit by Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon (see GSN, May 2).

The pending trade deal calls for the United States to drop many of its  nuclear nonproliferation rules to enable U.S. firms to export nuclear technology and material to India’s civilian nuclear sector.

Indian officials, however, have balked at the remaining nonproliferation measures the U.S. Congress voted to maintain last year.

Experts from both nations met in London last week to discuss the impasse and may have shaken the discussion free to enable Burns to visit New Delhi, according to AP (see GSN, May 23; Matthew Rosenberg, Associated Press, May 27).

“The big stuff has been done,” U.S. Ambassador to India David Mulford told the Wall Street Journal today.  “The devil is in the details.”

Those details include some “deeply political issues,” he added (Wonacott/Bussey, Wall Street Journal, May 29).

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