India, IAEA Reach Safeguards Agreement

By Greg Webb
Global Security Newswire

VIENNA — India has essentially completed negotiations with the U.N. nuclear agency on a plan to allow international inspectors to monitor the nation’s civilian nuclear activities, a Western diplomat said here yesterday (see GSN, March 3).

“The Indian safeguards agreement is done,” the diplomat said while noting that the text has not yet been signed.  “No more talks in Vienna” would be needed, added the diplomat, who is familiar with activities at the International Atomic Energy Agency headquartered here.

Formally completing the inspections agreement would satisfy a key precondition of implementing a U.S.-Indian nuclear trade deal that would enable New Delhi to purchase U.S. nuclear materials and technology even though it does not belong to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and does not permit international monitoring of its entire nuclear program.

Procedurally, three steps were needed to enact the trade deal:  exempting India from U.S. nuclear nonproliferation laws, modifying international nuclear trade guidelines, and completing an agreement giving IAEA inspectors access to India’s nuclear power facilities.

The first step was accomplished in late 2006, the second remains pending, and third has been virtually completed.

Opponents to the deal in New Delhi, however, have successfully scuttled it for the time being, with lawmakers from the left and the right complaining that the agreement would give the United States excessive influence over Indian nuclear policies.  Particularly troubling to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is opposition from key supporters of his ruling coalition.

Four communist parties have threatened to drop their support, thus forcing early elections, if Singh seeks to implement the trade deal.  The parties did, however, reportedly allow Singh to negotiate the safeguards agreement with the nuclear agency as long he promised not to sign it without receiving their approval.

Negotiations have now been completed, an agency official confirmed today, saying that if any small changes to the text were needed, they could be done “by picking up the telephone.”

It was not known when or if the safeguards deal would actually be signed.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher today reaffirmed the Bush administration’s stand that the Indian government must soon approve the deal if it is to be enacted in Washington, Reuters reported.

“Time is very tight.  But I think we can make this happen,” Boucher said, identifying July as the deadline for Congress to receive the agreement.  That comes shortly before its summer recess and then the November presidential election.

Singh told Indian lawmakers that his government is still pushing the deal forward.  “We … continue to seek the broadest possible consensus within the country,” he said.  “The cooperation is good for us, for our energy security and for the world.”

Singh’s comments suggested he would ignore opposition in order to move the deal through India’s parliament, said nuclear analyst R.R. Subramanian, who supports the agreement.

“The nuclear deal is the hobby horse of the prime minister,” Subramanian said.  “His statement is a clear indication that the government is ready to bid goodbye to the leftists.”

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