By Manish Chand
New Delhi, Aug 19 (IANS) Even as it copes with a fractious domestic debate over its civil nuclear deal with the US, the Indian government is going all out to secure the support of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and will focus on getting Tokyo’s backing during Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit here this week.
Japan will be a tough nut to crack, given a domestic constituency that baulks at the mention of the very word nuclear. Being the only country in the world to be attacked by nuclear weapons, the issue touches a raw nerve in Japan even now.
That’s why Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will need all his diplomatic skills to get Abe to say something more than ‘we will cross the bridge when we come to it’.
This was the position the Japanese prime minister took during Manmohan Singh’s visit to Tokyo late last year when Abe said his country would wait for India to conclude a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and finalise the 123 pact with the US before taking a formal stand on it.
This was again the stance the Japanese leadership took when National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan visited Tokyo after the 123 pact was announced by India and the US.
With the 123 pact out of the way – the mere formality of the two countries signing it remains – Abe should be able to say something more concrete this time round. He arrives on a three-day visit Tuesday.
Indian diplomats involved with NSG negotiations, who did not wish to be named, cited the example of Australia, which has cleared the sale of uranium to India after protracted domestic debate, as a sign of how the nuclear deal will play out in NSG.
Things have to work fast in the NSG with India and the US hoping that the NSG effects the rule change to resume global nuclear commerce with New Delhi soon so that the 123 pact can be approved by the US Congress before the end of this year when Washington plunges into election mode.
The NSG, the powerful cartel that controls the global flow of nuclear technology and fuel and works by consensus, is likely to meet in the third week of September. The Bush administration has agreed to convene a special session of the NSG, if need be, to discuss and approve the US-India nuclear deal
Germany is another important NSG country India needs to win over. Shyam Saran, the prime minister’s special envoy on the India-US nuclear deal and a former foreign secretary, is in Berlin to get its crucial backing for the nuclear deal.
German ambassador Bernd Muetzelburg has indicated that Berlin would evolve consensus for the India-US deal in NSG when it assumes the chair of the organisation next year.
Saran has already secured unconditional support from Russia for mobilising support for the deal in NSG.
After Berlin, Saran heads to Brazil and Argentina to win support of the two big Latin American countries that are also members of NSG.
The real diplomatic challenge in the NSG will be China, which may press for a similar deal for its ally Pakistan.
Seasoned diplomats and analysts, however, feel that Beijing in the end will not like to play the spoiler and might try to extract a deal from the US and India in return for its support.
The Scandinavian countries, which are extremely touchy on the nuclear issue owing to powerful domestic opinion in their countries, are likely to be another problem area.
India’s negotiations with NSG are likely to be watched closely by the government’s Left allies and opposition parties who have rejected the nuclear deal. The government’s focus will be on getting an unconditional exemption from NSG and to ensure that its rule is not conditional on a test ban by India.
If NSG retracts its rule change in the event of India conducting a nuclear test, the 123 pact’s assurance of permanent fuel supplies and a strategic fuel reserve that insulates Indian reactors will not hold and may eventually kill the deal.