Indo-US deal

Following intense negotiations that had been going on since US President George W Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed last July to forge civil nuclear co-operation between their countries, the two leaders finally signed a deal in Delhi on Thursday.
As Bush told journalists during his stopover in Kabul en route to Delhi, his side had continued to negotiate with the Indian interlocutors from the plane.
Such was his enthusiasm to strengthen his country's 'strategic partnership' with India. By the time the two leaders sat down for formal talks, the agreement was ready to be signed.
It presents an interesting example of the Indians' tough negotiating style. While the concerned officials were busy talking to their American counterparts, Indian scientists and a host of retired bureaucrats and military men began raising objections to the American demand that the country's civilian and military programmes be separated completely.
According to them, it was almost impossible to separate the two, and that placing the fast breeder reactors under a civilian nuclear programme would undermine the country's security.
They further argued that it was important to develop a fast breeder reactor capacity, and for that India needed to rely on thorium, which is readily available in the country, rather than uranium that is both expensive and difficult to obtain from the international market.
Some people in this country believe, perhaps rightly, that all such objections and reservations regarding the terms Washington was insisting on were part of a well-orchestrated campaign to pressure Washington into thinking that India was prepared to forgo the American offer if that meant accepting limitations on its nuclear programme.
Whether or not there was a method to this carping campaign, the terms of the agreement, though not completely available as yet, seem to concede the Indian position.
Under it, India is to place 14 of its 22 nuclear power plants under international safeguards. Four of its existing 15 operational reactors are already subject to those safeguards. But, like it wanted, the fast breeder reactors will not be a part of the civilian nuclear programme.
The US-India joint statement issued after the Bush-Singh meeting described the deal as a "historic accomplishment" which would permit the two countries "to move forward towards our common objective of full civil nuclear energy co-operation between India and the United States, and between India and the international community as a whole." Which means that the US will not only offer India nuclear technology and materials but also pave the way for the international Nuclear Supplier Group to extend the same sort of co-operation to Delhi. No wonder, an exuberant Singh declared that the deal "makes me confident there is no limit to Indo-US partnership."
What boosts up Manmohan Singh's confidence, will be naturally a source of concern for his country's old rivals, Pakistan and China. Ever since Bush promised India the nuclear deal that is bound to reconstruct the balance of power in this region, Pakistan has been saying it expected to receive similar co-operation from the US.
Surely, it knows that is not going to happen. The US has a huge economic interest in India. As of now, over 9000 US corporations are engaged in business activities in that country. Equally important, it wants to build India as a counterweight to China, which is poised to become a superpower in not-too-distant a future. It is not only Pakistan, therefore, which is worried over the Indo-US deal, China may be perturbed, too.
The agreement re-confirms that morality has no place in international relations. India is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which allows nations to acquire capacity for production of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes only under IAEA safeguards.
In fact, India became a nuclear power, rejecting the morality of NPT at the same time, regardless of American disapproval and restrictions for three decades on technological dealings, with the US industry.
Hence, the Delhi agreement is a plain mockery of international law and even US own law on nuclear co-operation. Some of the US legislators and nuclear experts have denounced it, saying it weakens international safeguards, especially the NPT, as India has refused to sign it.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman echoed a similar view as he averred, that the "co-operation must conform to the requirements and provisions of the international non-proliferation regime and the obligations undertaken by all countries." It is ironic, indeed, that President Bush has chosen to undermine the nuclear non-proliferation regime at a time when he is hurling all sorts of threats at Iran, which has signed the NPT also, for wanting to set up a nuclear power programme.