By IANS,
Vienna : Indian and the US officials were engaged in negotiations till late Friday night to agree on the wordings in a ‘changed draft’ prepared by the US to find a consensus in the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) for a “clean waiver” to India.
Most members of the NSG were, however, kept out of the negotiations as senior officials of the two countries entered into serious consultations to agree to the language and wordings in the ‘changed draft’.
The negotiations between India and the US went on for nearly five hours as attempts were made to come to an agreement on the draft and get it approved by the NSG members. But till late night no agreement was reached.
Indications suggest that if negotiations prolong between the two sides, copies of the draft will be circulated among the NSG members later and only after the two sides agreed to the new wordings and language in them.
The possibility of the NSG members meeting informally on Sep 8 and later for yet another special session towards the third week of the month, to approve the draft and formally announcing its consensus decision on a India-specific waiver, is not ruled out.
The US came out with a ‘changed draft’ Friday night to find the elusive consensus among 45-members of the NSG on a “clean waiver” to allow commerce between India and the powerful cartel that controls the global supply of nuclear fuel, equipments and technology.
Negotiations were on to reach an agreement on the draft to ensure it was acceptable to India as well as the NSG members.
Austria, Ireland and New Zealand, were the three countries in the 45-member Group that prevented a consensus from emerging in the Group on an India-specific waiver. They insisted that provisions be brought in the draft that will ensure that all commercial dealing with India will be stopped the moment it conducted another nuclear test.
The external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee issued a statement re-affirming India’s commitment to a “voluntary moratorium” on further tests.
“We remain committed to a voluntary, unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing. We do not subscribe to any arms race, including a nuclear arms race. We have always tempered the exercise of our strategic autonomy with a sense of global responsibility. We affirm our policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons,” Mukherjee said in the statement.
Mukherjee stressed that “India is interested in participating as a supplier nation, particularly for Thorium-based fuel and in establishment of international fuel banks, which also benefit India.”
He said, “India will not be the source of proliferation of sensitive technologies, including enrichment and reprocessing transfers. We stand for the strengthening of the non-proliferation regime. We support international efforts to limit the spread of ENR equipment or technologies to states that do not have them. We will work together with the international community to advance our common objective of non-proliferation.”
The external affairs minister added, “India has an impeccable non-proliferation record. We have in place an effective and comprehensive system of national export controls, which has been constantly updated to meet the highest international standards.”
Pranab Mukherjee’s statement was made at a time when the NSG members were engaged in hectic consultations to iron out their differences on lifting the existing ban to start nuclear commerce with India.
The fact that it was aimed at skeptics in the NSG was clear from both the timing and the elaborate contents of the statement.
“It is a very significant statement and has created a positive momentum among the NSG members,” US under secretary for arms control John Rood told reporters in the afternoon.
But Austria, Ireland and New Zealand continued to holdout and stressed that a more legal and binding commitment on future test was needed from India.
They insisted that the NSG must bring in provisions in the draft that will make it explicitly clear that all nuclear trade with India will be immediately halted if it conducted another test.
India had made it clear from the very beginning of the negotiations that it wanted a “clean waiver” from the NSG and will not accept any provisions that can be interpreted as intrusive and interfering with its sovereign rights.
The firm stand taken by India and the reluctance of the three NSG members to agree to anything short of an explicit provision terminating all trade with New Delhi in the event it conducted a nuclear test forced the US to prepare a “changed draft” that will be acceptable to all.