Senators Push India to Advance Nuclear Deal

Three visiting U.S. senators warned Indian leaders yesterday that they have little time to resolve domestic opposition to a pending U.S.-Indian nuclear trade deal if the pact is to be approved this year in Washington, news agencies reported (see GSN, Feb. 20).

One senator offered an early June deadline and another said July.  Both suggested that the U.S. Congress would need several months to approve the final agreement and that the next U.S. president, to be elected in November, would probably want to change the current deal.

The trade deal would enable New Delhi to purchase U.S. nuclear materials and technology, access that has been denied for decades because of India’s refusal to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or to allow international supervision of its nuclear activities.  The pact hinges in part upon India receiving an exemption from existing nuclear trade rules and a final green light from U.S. lawmakers.

More important, however, is domestic political opposition facing India’s leadership.  Key political backers of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have threatened to withdraw their support if he moves to implement the trade deal, which the opponents have criticized as allowing excessive U.S. influence over Indian policy.

“It is critical, if India want that deal, they move on relatively soon, within a matter of weeks,” said U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-Del.) during a visit to New Delhi with fellow Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.).  “Quite frankly, if they don't, as they say in our system, the clock is running.”

“If the deal is not before the Senate by early June, there will be little chance” of seeing congressional approval this year, he added (Bibhudatta Pradhan, Bloomberg, Feb. 20).

The time pressure did not reflect a dispute over “the merits (of the deal), but on the mechanics on which our system functions,” Biden said.

If the deal slips, it could be lost forever after a new U.S. president takes office in January 2009.

“It is highly unlikely the next president will be able to present the same deal.  It will be renegotiated,” Biden said.

Kerry concurred.

“July is the end — it's only an even chance even then,” he said (Agence France-Presse, Google News, Feb. 21).

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