Indo-US nuclear deal finalized: waiting for Govt. approval

NI Wire

New Delhi

Sat, 21 Jul 2007: 

July 21: Official report suggests that India and the United States have finally resolved on the conflicting areas in 123 agreement, the most talked about cilian nuclear deal after a long and extensive talk in Washington between the secretaries of both the countries, India and US.

Though they concluded the common text of the deal, still the agreement needs a final approval from the government of the two countries.

In a joint statement, US undersecretary of state Nicholas Burns and Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon termed the 4-day long discussions as positive and fruitful to carry out the deal. Without disclosing any details of the agreement they also said that it is now up to the US Senate and Indian Parliament to approve the deal.

Again India also has to sign an agreement with UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to practice some norms and conditions set up by the agency and also need the approval of 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group.

There were differences on the various issues of the 123 agreement in question of right of India to the reprocessing of fuel, supply of nuclear fuel from US, international inspection in Indian civil nuclear reactor units and the right to conduct nuclear test.

The latest development however is believed to solve by discussing all those points. For the reprocessing, India intends to secure the right to reprocess the spent nuclear fuel.

But the most important is the separation of civilian and military nuclear facilities by India as a result the civilian nuclear programme will be under observation of permanent international safeguard agency. There will be no intervention of US or IAEA in India’s defense nuclear programmes. This is also important as US wants those facilities and technology not to be used in the development of nuclear weapons.

Another demand of India is the continuous supply of nuclear fuel and in this regard India will get fuel for those reactors that are bought from US.

However, as far as India’s nuclear test is concerned, US holds the right to stop all cooperation if India conducts any nuclear weapon test.