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Diluted NSG draft – India may get clean but not unconditional nod |
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Harjit Singh
A revised draft of a Nuclear Suppliers’ Group waiver from its guidelines is to be presented at its Sept. 1 meeting in Vienna. Hammered out after intense discussions between New Delhi and Washington after the first one was rejected at the August 22 meeting, the new draft is most likely going to see India making a climbdown on its demand for an unconditional waiver. Given the hardline stand taken by countries like New Zealand, Austria and Ireland, both the visiting US Assistant Secretary of State, Richard Boucher and the American Ambassador to India, David Mulford, have told India that at the most it could hope to get a “clean’ but not the “unconditional” nod which means New Delhi will have to give up its demand that the waiver will have to be within the parameters of the India-US joint statement and the subsequent agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation signed by President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
At the earlier NSG meeting on August 21-22 as many as 50 amendments were introduced by at least 15 countries linking the waiver to non-proliferation. High on their list of amendments was a clause that would deny India enrichment and reprocessing rights and nuclear trade if New Delhi were to carry out a nuclear test. In spite of the most members not being averse to a special exemption for India, some in the NSG continue to insist that provisions be brought in to halt all commerce with New Delhi if it conducts any further nuclear test. Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon claimed after the Aug 22 meeting that there has been a narrowing down of differences between the various countries, but admitted that concerns of some nations remained.
India had set out the “red lines” or Lakshmanrekha stating that it could not accept any thing it had not committed itself in the July 2005 Indo-US joint statement which included the existing nuclear testing moratorium, no export of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology, and conforming to non-proliferation agreements like the IAEA Additional Protocol and Missile Technology Control Regime.
The conditions that are sought to be introduced in the NSG waiver by the opponents include “prescriptive” amendments, which seek that India eventually signs the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Other amendments include the “post-conditions”, including a periodic review [a whiff of America’s Hyde Act] – a list of actions which could result in the immediate and automatic termination of nuclear supplies to India. There is also an attempt to limit the scope of co-operation to certain aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle and exclude enrichment and reprocessing (ENR).
The conditionality India is most concerned about is the ban on ENR technology transfer. India is adamant that this should not be barred to India. Sources said ever since the NSG was established, there has been a tradition of transferring ENR technology only to countries that already have it. There is a huge resistance to giving it to India, and one of the unstated reasons, said an Indian official, could be “to extend India’s external vulnerabilities”. But many countries are insisting on barring this to India. The infamous Hyde Act actually allows transfer of ENR technology to India under certain conditions – in a multinational facility, under a bilateral agreement or if the US President certifies that the enriched fuel would only be used for civilian purposes.
It is possible that at the coming NSG meeting, the reservations of the countries such as Austria, Ireland and New Zealand would be laid to rest. The plain fact is that India has an impeccable record on non-proliferation and it has proper systems, controls and other attendant measures in place to guard against transfer of dual use technology and nuclear fuel to ineligible entities. Any way, the intended waiver is truly unprecedented in the annals of the international nuclear regime and some heat and dust can safely be expected in the process of getting a one-off exemption. But, while New Delhi can demand a “clean exemption” and oppose conditionalities, it does make sense to be reasonably flexible. The Indo-US nuclear deal after all does have built-in mechanisms for such practicalities.
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