An indication that the US and Indian negotiators may finally be on the brink of wrapping up an elusive agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation, senior Indian officials on Thursday postponed their departure from Washington for yet another day of talks.
This was the second time in two days that talks have been extended. Foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and his team had earlier planned to leave Washington on Thursday night, while national security advisor M.K. Narayanan was scheduled to leave the next day. More talks would now be held on Friday.
At the State Department, undersecretary of state R. Nicholas Burns, the Bush administration’s point man on the deal, said negotiators just needed to go “the extra couple of feet” and had
overcome many of the “outstanding issues.”
“We are in an extra innings,” he said, using baseball terminology. “We haven’t given up and I’m very hopeful we might have an agreement.”
The extension of talks follows a significant political push by vice president Dick Cheney who met the Indian negotiators on Thursday afternoon. The meeting followed similar interactions between the Indians and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and national security adviser Stephen Hadley.
Earlier on Thursday, State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey hinted a final agreement might still be some time coming. “I think they have had a couple of good days of discussions. Again, they added these extra discussions this morning,” he said. “The way these things go, you get to logical points where you need to stop and take a pause for a little bit, assess where you are, look at any outstanding issues, check with your capitals or check with your superiors and things. But again, I think we have made some good progress. There is goodwill on both sides and a desire to reach this agreement.” He said US officials are very hopeful remaining issues could be hammered out “in the coming days and weeks.”
Congressional sources, however, cautioned that in the past apparent progress made during the negotiations had unraveled when the teams headed back to their respective capitals and faced domestic critics.
The two sides have been engaged for the past two years in an effort to sort out differences over language of the so-called 123 Agreement that governs nuclear agreements between the US and other countries.
The deal with India is tricky since unlike other countries with which the US has similar agreements, India is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Critics of the deal, including Washington’s well-entrenched nonproliferation lobby, oppose providing nuclear fuel to India since it remains outside the NPT tent.
Two issues that have continued to vex negotiators are assurances to India of uninterrupted fuel supply in the event India tests a nuclear device, and the right to reprocess spent fuel.
Under the US law, if India conducts another nuclear test, the US president “must terminate all export and re-export of US-origin nuclear materials, nuclear equipment, and sensitive nuclear technology to India.”
The Indian team has proposed to set up a special unit to reprocess spent atomic fuel at home under international safeguards in a bid to break the logjam.
