The ides of March may be India’s internal deadline for completing the IAEA safeguards agreement on its civilian nuclear facilities.
This has reportedly been decided by the government, after the MEA-DAE team returned from Vienna on Sunday with what appears to be the final draft of the agreement.
The government’s legal brains will now go through the agreement to see if India can “live with” it. This exercise, sources said, should be completed by the middle of this month.
The completed Indian safeguards agreement is expected to dovetail into foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee’s maiden visit (as foreign minister) to Washington on March 23-25, where he is expected to present this to his counterpart Condoleezza Rice.
Politically, sources said, it would make sense for Mukherjee to go to Washington with a concrete document in hand, rather than open himself up to a host of diplomatic harangue.
Sources indicated that the crucial UPA-Left meeting will probably be scheduled after his return and after the CPM’s party congress scheduled for March 29. This remains the imponderable because it’s not yet clear whether the government will take the agreement beyond the Left’s veto – which is a given.
In fact, pre-empting the expected criticism of Rice’s statement, Mukherjee stated in Parliament on Monday, “The Hyde Act is an enabling provision that is between the executive and legislative organs of the US government. India’s rights and obligations regarding civil nuclear cooperation with the US arise only from the bilateral 123 agreement.”
What is not clear is how the government plans to go ahead with the deal if the Left withdraws support and it is reduced to a minority.
Mukherjee had earlier said that other countries would not like to conclude a nuclear agreement with a minority government. This circle has not been squared. Mukherjee gave a spirited defence of the nuclear deal. “The conclusion of the safeguards agreement will enable the Nuclear Suppliers Group to amend its guidelines for civil nuclear commerce with India,” he said.
Consistent with the government’s policy of spreading the goodies around in the nuclear sector to make it more palatable to the Left, Mukherjee said, “This (the deal) will open the door to civil nuclear cooperation with various countries including Russia, US, France and UK with whom the necessary enabling bilateral agreements for such trade have been discussed and are in various stages of finalisation.”
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