McCain/Obama may link Indo-US N-deal to CTBT

John McCain and Barak Obama may have previously backed the nuclear deal with India but the new US President may link its full implementation to Indian acceptance of CTBT.

WASHINGTON: John McCain and Barak Obama, presumptive Republican and Democratic presidential nominees, may have previously backed the nuclear deal with India but the new US President may link its full implementation to Indian acceptance of CTBT, which Bush administration has staunchly opposed, a former senior American diplomat says.

"Both (McCain and Obama) supported the Bush-Singh deal. However, it is unclear whether either, as President, would simply endorse and implement it in its present form," says Strobe Talbott, former president Bill Clinton's special envoy for the US-Indian dialogue of 1998-2000.

"The winner of the election might, in some fashion, link full implementation of the deal to Indian acceptance of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the Bush administration has staunchly opposed," Talbott says.

Painting a rosy picture of Indo-US ties as a "relationship that is on an upward trajectory," the former US deputy secretary of state, however, says the nuclear deal is "fatally wounded" and goes on to add that US officials remain sceptical about the deal.

"They fear the pact is a fatally wounded victim of Indian internal politics - subject, perhaps, to resurrection next year, when there will be a new leader on the US side and might be one on the Indian side as well. In that case, McCain or Obama would inherit a tricky and consequential piece of unfinished business," Talbott, now President of the Washington-based Brookings Institution, a prominent think-tank, said in a latest article on Indo-US relations.
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