New Delhi, May 16 (IANS) As India and the US brace for hard bargaining on their bilateral civil nuclear pact next week, the government Wednesday said that the final 123 agreement will have to adhere to “commitments” made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in parliament.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha during question hour that the 123 pact, named after Section 123 of US Atomic Energy Act, will be firmed up only within the framework and parameters of agreement reached between India and the US on July 18, 2005 and the Separation Plan of March 2, 2006.
In an address to parliament last year, Manmohan Singh assured that India will not accept a ban on nuclear testing and restrictions on transfer of reprocessing technologies – issues on which New Delhi continues to have serious differences with Washington.
The minister responded in the negative when asked whether the deal was in “jeopardy” as reported in a section of media. “It is not true,” he said.
“The two sides are continuing discussions with a view to finalising the bilateral co-operation agreement in civil nuclear energy,” he said.
US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, Washington’s chief interlocutor on the nuclear deal, will arrive here early next week for crucial negotiations aimed at fleshing out a “legally binding text” that will enable full civilian nuclear cooperation with India after a gap of nearly three decades.
Burns will hold talks with Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on India-US civil nuclear deal Shyam Saran to sort out differences over key issues like testing, reprocessing technologies and the nature of New Delhi’s safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
There is a growing realisation on both sides that the 123 pact is “doable” and should be done “as quickly as possible”.
Mukherjee acknowledged that there were reports in leading newspapers like The Washington Post that quoted Burns as expressing the US’ “disappointment over the pace and seriousness of the civil nuclear negotiations with India”, but added that this tone of pessimism was replaced by one of optimism after talks with Menon and Burns in Washington nearly a fortnight back.
“The discussions were positive and the US is encouraged by the extensive progress made on the issue,” the State Department said in a statement after the talks between Menon and Burns.