PM, Bush to talk nuclear deal on G-8 sidelines

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W Bush will meet on the sidelines of the G-8 summit on June 6-8 in Heiligendamm, Germany.

The meeting will be held amid increasingly voluble concerns over the status of negotiations between the two countries over the 123 Agreement that will operationalise the civilian nuclear deal.

The Bush administration is anxious to see the deal through before the presidential election fever takes over the US. Singh's meeting with Bush could very well break the deadlock.

Reports and statements by the US administration show a high level of frustration with Indian positions at the negotiating table.

The sticking points are four important issues. The first relates to concerns over dual use of the technology and directly relates to fuel-supply guarantees. The Indian side wants a long-term fuel guarantee from the US, while Washington wants to be informed about the use of the fuel. "This is not an unreasonable demand," said a former diplomat who was posted in the US earlier.

"Any country will have its concerns, and the US has not said that it will create any problems if its concerns are addressed," he added.

The other concern is regarding the reprocessing of fuel. With the spectre of Tarapur and its used fuel in storage haunting the Indian scientific establishment, India is concerned over US' refusal on reprocessing. This could well become a deal-breaker.

"Right now I would say the chances of the deal going through is 50:50, but the US has to be reasonable on that score," he said.

The last point is more a question of appearances than anything, according to those negotiating the deal.

"It concerns inspections. The current formulation is that only of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) structure fails will US teams inspect facilities in India. This is on the assumption that the IAEA system fails, which will anyway be a catastrophe world wide. With a little change in language, this could be negotiable," said a source.

India has been invited as an observer to the G-8 meet.