N-deal not dead, India tells NSG

NEW DELHI: Within the country, the UPA government has not managed the promised consensus on the India-US nuclear deal with the Left parties, even postponing the next UPA-Left committee meeting scheduled for May 28. But internationally, the government is signalling to its interlocutors that it is not giving up just yet.
At last week's plenary meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in Berlin, Indian officials briefed the grouping on the state of play on the nuclear deal and the IAEA safeguards agreement. The briefing was done by senior officials of the DAE and Venkatesh Varma, MEA's pointperson on the IAEA safeguards negotiations.
The message from India was that the deal was not dead and would be completed. The briefing was done on the sidelines of the meeting, and concentrated on the safeguards agreement. India is not a member of the NSG and can only brief the members informally.
The real work of getting an exemption from the NSG will be done by the US and other countries like France, UK and Russia, who want to start nuclear commerce with India. The chairmanship of the nuclear body has just passed to Germany from South Africa.
In 2007, Indian officials had briefed the NSG at Cape Town on the 123 agreement which was close to completion at that stage.
On Monday, foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee announced the postponement of the N-deal talks with the Left. No further dates have been announced. Over the weekend, the Left parties had issued a statement opposing the rationale of depleting uranium supplies for going ahead with the nuclear deal.
The government is hobbled, facing the opposition of the Left and an institutional reluctance to bring the government down on this issue and go to polls ahead of schedule. On the other hand, senior government leaders have said that India should not have to bear the responsibility of killing the deal. But none of this stands the test of political calculations, specially in the aftermath of the Karnataka poll results.
Interestingly, the NSG meeting saw a thawing of the Australian position vis-a-vis the nuclear deal and uranium sales to India. The Labour Party under Kevin Rudd had summarily reversed the earlier government's decision to sell uranium to India.
However, in a clear sign that the winds could change in Canberra, Australian foreign minister Stephen Smith told a group of Indian journalists in Canberra recently, "The Labour Party has a strong policy of not exporting uranium to any country that has not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). We have made this clear to Indian officials that we are bound by the party policy. But if the 123 agreement is passed by the Indian Parliament, we could consider joining a consensus of the NSG and IAEA." He added, "We will wait for the 123 agreement between India and the US to emerge and then make a judgment."