New Delhi, September 18
Brookings Institution President and former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott has said categorically that the Indo-US nuclear deal will go through smoothly.
“We are going to get the nuclear deal and we have to work with it,” he said during a talk on US foreign policy at the Observer Research Foundation here today.
He said the deal was also discussed with the previous NDA government but could not get to the four benchmarks of the CTBT, strategic restraint, fissile material and Indo-Pakistan peace process.
Mr Talbott said Indo-US relations were on a solid footing and received bipartisan support. While there were serious political obstacles in India for the deal, he believed that the killer amendments would not infringe on India.
He said the essence of the nuclear deal was that it was making an exception with regard to the NPT. Even as India deserved the exception, arguments would be raised as to why such an exception not be made in respect of other countries. To that extent, the deal might be viewed as a precarious one, he said.
Asked if there was a nudge by the US for putting the Indo-Pak peace process on the track in Havana, Mr Talbott said: “I don’t think Prime Minister Manmohan Singh needed any such nudge. It reflected Dr Singh’s personal statesmanship and wisdom. The Pakistan President must also be congratulated.”
