The Hindu Business Line : Nuclear deal in choppy waters?

There is cloud over the expectation that with the Government's successful squelching of the Left's opposition through the confidence vote in the Lok Sabha and completion of the negotiation on the safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear agreement with the US will have a smooth passage.

It had so far been assumed on the Indian side that the 123 Agreement and the IAEA Safeguards Agreement already sewn up, all that remained was securing the approval of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) to the entire arrangement, enabling India to acquire the fuel, equipment and technology needed for augmenting the generation of atomic power in line with its master plan.

Indeed, some analysts in India were even jubilant that once the NSG okays the deal, it was immaterial whether or not the US Congress ratified the 123 Agreement, and India can straightaway begin dealing with suppliers other than the US in the NSG.

It now transpires that the deal's passage is not going to be that easy. To head off the possibility of India dealing with preferred members of the NSG without reference to the US, there is apparently a move either to time the IAEA Safeguards Agreement, the NSG decision and the US Congressional ratification of the123 Agreement to take place simultaneously, or even to make the US Congressional ratification of the 123 Agreement precede the other two processes so that the US is able to retain its hold on the subsequent operations under the deal. By way of double precaution, the US has reportedly secured a `political understanding' from Russia and France that they would not rush to conclude export deals with India following the NSG waiver but wait until the US Congress ratifies the 123 Agreement.

A more disturbing connotation has been put on the US perspective by the statement of the US Ambassador, Mr David C. Mulford, at a media meet on July 23, that the NSG waiver is bound to take into account not only the prescriptions in the IAEA safeguards and the 123 Agreement but also `the determinations' the President has to make under the Hyde Act.

PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATIONS

The determinations the President has to make and apprise the Congress impinge on the activities of almost the entire Department of Atomic Energy, bringing within their purview nuclear facilities within as well as outside the safeguards scheme, that is, meant for both strategic and non-strategic purposes.

For example, the Congress has demanded to know from the President every year the quantity of uranium mined, milled, processed and utilised by India, especially for production of nuclear explosives devices, the rate of production in India of fissile material for nuclear explosive devices; the amount of electricity India's nuclear reactors produced for civil purposes and the proportion of such production that can be attributed to India's declared civil reactors; and an analysis as to whether imported uranium has affected the rate of production in India of nuclear explosive devices.

The President has also to report to the Congress how well India has cooperated with the US in its efforts "to dissuade, isolate, and, if necessary, sanction and contain Iran" to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons capability.

There is besides Section 106 of the Hyde Act which is categorical that all exemptions and waivers granted under the Act shall cease to be effective if India is found to have detonated a nuclear explosive device after the date of the enactment.

The deal is as good as sunk if there is any attempt on the NSG's part to make its decision contingent on India's compliance with the `determinations' of the Hyde Act.

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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