No nukes?

It is clear now that only political initiative can salvage the Indo-US nuclear deal. Several rounds of negotiations at the official level have not narrowed the gap on the crucial issues, and it would seem that one of the two countries, and perhaps both, will have to shift positions if there is to be a deal. The hard reality, though, is that India has drawn a line in the sand through the Prime Minister's clear-cut statement in Parliament last August, harking back to what was said in the joint statement at the end of Dr Singh's visit to Washington. And the US has a new law that Congress has already passed, which does not rest fully on the joint statement, and which is unlikely to be revisited. Then there are equally knotty issues to be hammered out at the International Atomic Energy Agency for an India-specific safeguards regime, and the negotiations with the Nuclear Suppliers Group, in which many small European countries are not being very helpful""and each member of the group has a de facto veto.

The easy conclusion would be that the deal is close to being dead in the water. As things stand, neither country seems ready as yet to come to that conclusion, even though it is clear that President Bush does not have the political authority to go back to a Democrat-controlled Congress and seek fresh amendments to the law; equally, Dr Singh would be committing hara-kiri if he were to depart in any way from what he committed to Parliament. In other words, if neither leader can get his country to shift positions (as diplomats on both sides may have hoped at one state that they would), then no deal is possible.

The issues involved are not trivial, including as they do the right to reprocess spent fuel rods, the assurance of supplies for the life of the nuclear power plants that are to be built, and the effort to convert a unilateral decision to not conduct more tests into a bilateral commitment to which penalties are attached in the event of a breach. The differences on these issues flow from the different ways in which the deal was sold in the two countries""one only has to compare what Condoleezza Rice told the US Congress with what Dr Singh told the Lok Sabha, for this to become clear. In India, the deal was seen as a way of breaking out of a tight corner, of allowing investment in nuclear energy for power, and of ensuring proper supplies of technology and components for nuclear plants and the fuel with which to run them, while the strategic nuclear option would not be affected at all. In the US, by way of sharp contrast, the deal was sold as a way of bringing India into the non-proliferation tent the long way round, and of finding a way to put new constraints on its strategic nuclear option while allowing the nuclear power programme to go forward. The question now is how to square the circle. Over to Dr Singh and President Bush, who will have a chance to meet in June when the G-8 gets together.