US polls' shadow on N-deal

The beginning of the US election cycle for 2008 "" the nation will elect a President, House of Representatives and Senate in November 2008 "" has deepened India's urgency to get the civil nuclear deal with the US approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG).

An 'up-and-down' vote in the US Congress will be hastened if the naysayers in the US legislative establishment are convinced that India will not be singled out for special treatment and rewarded for its nuclear tests, and the nuclear deal serves as an example for other proliferators.

The Indian government argues that the country cannot be equated with North Korea and has agreed to submit itself to India-specific safeguards of those nuclear facilities that are non-military.

"It will be an autonomous Indian decision as to what is 'civilian' and what is 'military'. Nobody will tell us what is 'civilian' and what is 'military'," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in his statement in Parliament.

The problem that India is seeking to resolve is to reconcile the Information Circular 66 (INFCIRC 66) safeguards agreement of the IAEA with India-specific safeguards.

This will require a final push in India's lobbying efforts because India argues that safeguarded establishments should only be visited by the IAEA inspectors when foreign fuel is being used.

The US says this should not be permitted. This problem would not have arisen at all if India had been declared a Nuclear Weapon State, because the INFCIRC 153 for non-nuclear weapon states allows its facilities to shift from civilian to military.

But the 123 Agreement text, it appears, has stopped short of calling India a non-nuclear weapon state for obvious reasons. So it will take diplomatic ingenuity on India's part to influence IAEA to accept a halfway house proliferator against the background of India's responsible record. Fears will have to be set at rest that India will not pass on nuclear technology and fuel to other nations.

An equally complex process will have to be followed at the meeting of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG). A 1992 NSG rule restricts nuclear trade with non-nuclear weapon states that do not subject all of their nuclear enterprise to IAEA safeguards.

Meanwhile, the PM today assured the BJP that India's strategic programme would not be impacted by the deal, but the party maintained that its apprehensions had not been allayed completely.