For its part, Washington is peddling three benefits of the India-US nuclear deal so that IAEA and NSG members are reassured of the deal’s worthiness. According to Gregory Schulte, the US permanent representative in Vienna, allowing civil nuclear cooperation between India and interested countries in Europe and elsewhere has the following benefits: Bringing India into the nuclear non-proliferation mainstream, helping India meet its growing energy needs while protecting the environment and deepening the strategic partnership between them and India.
Delivering a speech on Friday at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, Mr Schulte argued for the "full endorsement" of the nuclear deal by the IAEA board. What gives hope for Washington and New Delhi is that all 170 other safeguards agreements were approved routinely and all were approved by consensus. The US expected China and Pakistan to take a positive view of the India safeguards pact and not force a vote when the IAEA board meets on August 1.
26 July 2008: Asian Age
BY RAMESH RAMACHANDRAN
NEW DELHI - Armed with a convincing win in the trust vote in the Lok Sabha, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government has pulled out all the stops to clinch the India-US nuclear deal. It has launched a public relations blitz in Vienna and certain other world capitals to win over sceptics and influence fence-sitters.
For its part, Washington is peddling three benefits of the India-US nuclear deal so that IAEA and NSG members are reassured of the deal’s worthiness. According to Gregory Schulte, the US permanent representative in Vienna, allowing civil nuclear cooperation between India and interested countries in Europe and elsewhere has the following benefits: Bringing India into the nuclear non-proliferation mainstream, helping India meet its growing energy needs while protecting the environment and deepening the strategic partnership between them and India.
Delivering a speech on Friday at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, Mr Schulte argued for the "full endorsement" of the nuclear deal by the IAEA board. What gives hope for Washington and New Delhi is that all 170 other safeguards agreements were approved routinely and all were approved by consensus. The US expected China and Pakistan to take a positive view of the India safeguards pact and not force a vote when the IAEA board meets on August 1.
The NSG is likely to meet within a week or 10 days of the IAEA board meeting. India is hoping for a clean and unconditional exemption from the 44-member NSG, chaired by Germany. Washington has sought refuge in semantics to insist the NSG will likely give a clean exemption but not the unconditional waiver that New Delhi is seeking. A former director of Mumbai-based Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Dr A.N. Prasad, is not surprised. He suspected there will likely be "a minimum condition" that if India conducts a nuclear test, then exemption will discontinue.
Shyam Saran, who is the Prime Minister’s special envoy for the nuclear deal, has voiced similar apprehensions in the past.
"While the NSG may not impose adherence to the CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty) as a conditionality in giving us exemption, it is unrealistic to expect the group to convey any assurance that there will be no consequences for India if it decides to test. Having given up their own right to test, how can they be expected to give India that right in any explicit manner?" he has told this newspaper.
The provisional rules of procedure of the IAEA board stipulate that a simple majority of those present and voting would be enough to take a decision but in practice, the IAEA board strives to adopt all decisions, including approving safeguards agreements with states, with the "Vienna spirit", which encourages board members to reach consensus in taking decisions.
In contrast, the NSG operates by consensus, so every member counts.
