India Heads Toward Nuclear Deal Showdown

The Singh administration in India appears headed for a showdown by April with political allies who have opposed a proposed civilian nuclear trade deal with the United States, the Indo-Asian News Service reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 21).

“This has nothing to do with any deadline set by the U.S.  If the Left issue is not resolved by April, then the deal is as good as gone,” a senior government source said.

U.S. officials in recent weeks have pressed New Delhi to move forward with the agreement in hopes of seeing it enacted before the Bush administration leaves office in January 2009.

Indian communist parties, though, have threatened to force early elections if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s ruling party moves ahead with the nuclear deal.  If Indian communists refuse to compromise on the deal, Singh’s administration could either continue to delay the agreement or propose a parliamentary confidence vote that might produce new elections if defeated, IANS said.

Meanwhile, Indian nuclear negotiators expect to hold their fifth meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency officials before the end of February in a bid to complete a required safeguards agreement.

Under the pending agreement, New Delhi would open its civilian nuclear sites to international supervision in return for access to nuclear material and technology.  The U.N. nuclear watchdog’s standard safeguards pact cannot be applied to India because New Delhi possesses nuclear weapons and has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

“The safeguards pact itself may take some more time, may be another couple of rounds, but it will eventually be done well in time by mid-March.  The real point is when the government decides to take a political call on when to force the issue with the Left,” the source said (Indo-Asian News Service/India eNews, Feb. 24).

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