US says nuclear nations nearing deal on India trade
The United States said on Thursday 45 nations were making headway
towards agreement on lifting a ban on nuclear trade with India after
Washington reworked a draft for the move to ease proliferation fears.
But no breakthrough came after an all-day meeting of the Nuclear
Suppliers Group and U.S. officials negotiated separately well into the
night with NSG holdouts in search of consensus, with further revisions
to the draft expected, diplomats said.
Washington, racing to finalise a U.S.-Indian atomic energy deal, was
trying to clinch a one-time waiver of NSG rules against doing business
with states outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) before the
two-day NSG plenary ends on Friday.
Barring NSG action in early September, the U.S. Congress may run out
of time to ratify the deal before it adjourns at the end of the month
for elections, leaving the matter to an uncertain fate under a new
president.
Ahead of the Vienna meetings, some in the NSG said initial changes
made to the draft were "cosmetic" and did not allay concerns the deal
could subvert treaties meant to stop the production or testing of
nuclear weapons.
In a sign of its desire to save a major Bush administration
initiative, Washington sent its No. 3 diplomat, Undersecretary of State
for Political Affairs William Burns, to Vienna to head the U.S.
delegation at the nuclear cartel gathering.
"We are making steady progress in this process and will continue to
make progress," he said outside the closed meeting.
"And while a number of representatives here have raised important
questions that need to be addressed, our discussions have been
constructive and clearly aimed at reaching an early consensus," Burns
told reporters. He took no questions.
Diplomats had said before a flurry of extra consultations late on
Thursday that the NSG might have to meet again later this month to make
a decision, squeezing Congress's timetable.
Decisions by the nuclear export cartel must be unanimous.
Washington and some allies assert the U.S.-India deal will move the
world's largest democracy towards the non-proliferation mainstream and
fight global warming by furthering the use of low-polluting nuclear
energy in large developing economies.
NON-PROLIFERATION STANDARDS AT STAKE
NSG critics fear India could use access to nuclear material markets
to indirectly boost its bomb programme and drive nuclear rival and
fellow NPT outsider Pakistan into another arms race.
To forestall this, they demanded clauses specifying no trade in the
event of another nuclear test explosion, no transfers of fuel-enrichment
technology that could be replicated for bomb-making, and periodic
reviews of the waiver.
Some diplomats said reservations about a waiver had been reduced to a
small minority in the NSG by U.S. tweaks to the text making clearer,
though not saying outright, that trade with India would be cut off if it
tested another nuclear weapon.
But they said a holdout group comprising Switzerland, New Zealand,
Ireland, Austria, Norway and the Netherlands still felt the first
revision was not good enough, and enjoyed quiet but significant backing
from China.
"The key may lie in building a little more explicitness into the
waiver to satisfy the sceptics while keeping in mind India's narrow
political room for manoeuvre," said one senior diplomat.
India has ruled out conditions on an NSG exemption, such as a clear
test ban, to protect its strategic nuclear sovereignty.
But its ruling coalition remains vulnerable to opposition complaints
about a "sellout" of its strategic autonomy in the U.S. deal. It drew
renewed fire on Thursday over a leak of secret Bush administration
testimony assuring Congress that another Indian test would immediately
terminate trade.
The government said India stood by a unilateral test moratorium but
it would keep a right to test should it want to.
VIENNA, Friday, Reuters |
