Day after Pranab’s assurance, signs of trouble in N-deal

NEW DELHI: Attempting to finetune the language of the contentious provisions in the civilian nuclear bilateral agreement to the satisfaction of both sides, India and the US have exchanged drafts of the 123 agreement this week.

Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon spoke to Under Secretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns on Wednesday.

Sources said that progress has been made in the negotiations but both sides are still facing difficulties in thrashing out language that is mutually acceptable. As a result, a meeting between Mr Menon and Mr Burns, that was to take place next week to complete the negotiations, has been put off. The two sides, in spite of the latest exchange of drafts, are yet to agree on the wording of the provisions dealing with the issue of right to return of nuclear material in case of a nuclear test and rights to reprocessing technology.

Mr Burns will come to India once both sides have a mutually acceptable final draft. The recent draft was handed over by the Indian side through its Washington mission, sources said. The last draft was exchanged in March.

Sources said that negotiators at both the political and technical level were working through the clauses and as both sides have understood each others’ limitations, the attempt is to create a framework for keeping the issues open for discussions at a later stage.

The US has already said that it has domestic laws which cannot be changed for India and also obligations to the US Congress, while India, on its part, will not accept a ban on testing as a legally-binding commitment and restrictions on access to reprocessing technology. India has also reiterated in talks that it cannot accept anything that constricts India’s strategic programme and its indigenous three-stage nuclear programme.

Both sides say that they understand these are red lines that cannot be crossed and that they have to work around this limitation.

An agency report from Washington quoted a US state department official confirming that Mr Burns will come to India only for sealing the deal but that they were not at that point yet.

A Ministry of External Affairs statement on Mr Burns’ visit said, “no particular date had been finalised yet. We are in the process of exchanging suggestions and examining them.”

However, the agency report also indicated that the initial optimism expressed by the US state department is now flagging again. The official who was not named was further quoted as saying that at this point nobody knows when the agreement would be ready.

The report also quoted a congressional source as saying there was “a definite change in enthusiasm and one wonders if they have gotten some bad news (from New Delhi) in the last week.”

The talks have also acquired a sense of urgency with both sides acknowledging that the deal has to be completed as soon as possible. The two sides are working to complete the negotiations before a proposed meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W Bush on the sidelines of the G-8 summit.

“We have to find something that works for the both of us,” a source had said earlier.