Boucher to Review U.S.-India Nuclear Deal
Mar 3, 2008 (United Press International)
NEW DELHI, March 3 (UPI) -- U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher will review the status of the U.S.-India civil nuclear deal on his India visit, a report said Sunday. Boucher's two-day trip to India starting Tuesday comes as India has ended its latest round of talks on a safeguard agreement with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Press Trust of India reported. Implementation of the civil nuclear deal, however, remains stalled because of opposition from the Left parties in India's ruling coalition. Some U.S. lawmakers also oppose the agreement. Boucher is in charge of South Asia in the U.S. State Department. India must get the safeguard agreement with the IAEA before the deal can become operational. The PTI report said both the IAEA and India reportedly made "considerable progress" in the latest talks. Boucher would review the progress at those talks. India also must get a waiver from the 47-member Nuclear Suppliers Group allowing it to have civil nuclear cooperation with the international community.
China Will Back US-India Nuke Deal: Burns
Mar 3, 2008 (The Times of India)
NEW DELHI: China will back India's US-sponsored promotion to the international nuclear elite, breaking New Delhi's three-decade long isolation from the world nuclear trade, Nicholas Burns, the American pointman for the nuclear deal, promised on Friday shortly before he bowed out of office with the issue still up in air. In an interview from Washington in his last hours as the US Undersecretary of State, Burns, who is leaving the Bush administration to join the private sector, told TOI that the deal would go forward at the Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting "with a great deal of support" once the Indian government clinched the safeguards agreement with the IAEA. Central to Washington's optimism is the backing for the deal from Russia, UK, France and China, who Burns described as votaries of the US-India nuclear agreement. Asked if this meant that Beijing had come around and firmly committed support to the deal, Burns said he would rather let the Chinese government speak for itself but he didn't think China would block the deal. "It is our firm impression that China will support..." he said.
India Not Bound by Hyde Act: Pranab
Mar 3, 2008 (NewIndPress)
NEW DELHI: Questioning certain statements from the US, India on Monday made it clear that its rights and obligations on civil nuclear cooperation came only from the bilateral 123 agreement and it was not bound by the controversial Hyde Act. New Delhi's reiteration of its position came from External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the Lok Sabha in the wake of US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice's recent statement that the Bush administration would not support changes in the guidelines of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) sought by India that were in contradiction with the Hyde Act. In his eight-page statement, Mukherjee touched on relations including with China, Pakistan and other neighbouring countries. “The Hyde Act is an enabling provision that is between the executive and the legislative organs of the US government,” Mukherjee said in a suo motu statement on foreign policy-related developments. “India's rights and obligations regarding civil nuclear cooperation with the us arise only from the bilateral 123 agreement that we have agreed upon with the US,” he said.
India Still Seeks Support for U.S. Nuclear Deal
Mar 3, 2008 (The Washington Post)
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India said on Monday it was still looking for political support at home for a controversial nuclear deal with the United States, even as Washington says time is running out. The communists have threatened to pull down the government if the ruling Congress party tries to push through the deal, which would allow India access to U.S. nuclear fuel and technology. Foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee told parliament his government was still pursuing international approval for the agreement, but gave no indication the government would push it through at the cost of angering its leftist allies. "We will continue to seek broad political consensus within the country to take forward our engagement," he said. After delivering a voter-friendly budget on Friday, there has been talk the government was preparing to push the deal through, even if that meant early elections. The communists were quick to reject Mukherjee's statement. "There is no political consensus and hence it should not proceed further with the agreement," the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said in a statement.
BJP Reacts Strongly to Talbott's Remarks
Mar 1, 2008 (NDTV)
The Bhartiya Janata Party has reacted strongly to former US deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott's remarks that the saffron party, which now opposes the Indo-US nuke deal, was ready to settle for much less when in power. BJP hit back accusing the former American diplomat of being ignorant. Strobe Talbott is best known in India for conducting a two-year long marathon dialogue with Jaswant Singh after India's nuclear tests at Pokhran in 1998. He is a strong voice in America's small but powerful non-proliferation lobby. The comment also comes just a few days after L K Advani met the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and told him the BJP opposed the deal because of proposed curbs on India's nuclear automony. In an interview with Shekhar Gupta, He said that even though there are reservations about the deal, India should not waste any more time in finalising it as a new administration post-November might not be as willing to push it through.
Nuclear Deal, Elections on Menu after Budget
Feb 29, 2008 (Reuters)
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's ruling Congress party has strengthened its hand against the opposition and leftist allies with a farmer-friendly budget, raising a chance of early elections and reviving hope for a controversial nuclear deal. Congress leaders had been reluctant to push forward the civilian nuclear cooperation deal with the United States in the face of staunch opposition from their communist allies, who had threatened to bring down the coalition over the issue. U.S. officials warned this month that time was fast running out for the deal, which would end decades of nuclear isolation for India and allow it to access international nuclear fuel and equipment. Many analysts had all but written the agreement off. But Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram upset those calculations on Friday with a budget aimed squarely at elections and India's rural poor, with a $15 billion scheme to waive loans held by 40 million small farmers. Elections have to be held by May 2009, but Congress now has less to fear from an earlier vote, analysts say, meaning its leader Sonia Gandhi might just call the left's bluff over the nuclear deal.
Australia Offers India Hope on Uranium
Feb 29, 2008 (Asia Times)
MELBOURNE - A deal for Australia to supply India with uranium could still be struck, even after Australia's recent confirmation that it will not be exporting the fuel to the sub-continent, reversing an agreement made by the previous government. Exporting uranium to India "will not occur under the new government because we have a long-standing commitment of not exporting uranium, Australian uranium, to nations who are not party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT]," Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith told reporters in late January during a visit to the United States. Last August, the pre-general election Howard government broke from Australia's previously stated position on uranium exports by agreeing to supply uranium to India, which is not a signatory to the NPT. The reversal of this agreement by Australia's current Labor government, which came to power in November under new Primer Minister Kevin Rudd, may yet be overturned, despite Labor's policy of exporting uranium only to signatories of the NPT, experts said.
Interview with Nicholas Burns
Feb 29, 2008 (Asia News International)
Ambassador, on your last day in office, where are you leaving the U.S.-India nuclear deal? What’s the situation? Well, where we are leaving it is that India and the United States of course both want to push this deal forward. It’s indisputably in the best interests of India as well as my country. And I think there’s an international dimension of this that’s important for Indians to – for the Indian public to understand. This deal will have the support of Russia and of France and of Britain and of many other countries in between, and therefore it’s not just a deal with the United States. It’s really, if you will, the deliverance of India from its nuclear isolation over the last 35 years. So I think it has major importance for the future of India and the world, and we hope very much we can go forward as quickly as possible. Do you think it really will go forward? Well, that’s not up for us to decide. The United States has completed its end of the agreement with the three agreements we’ve arrived at with the Indian government over the last three years. It’s now up to the Indian government to decide whether or not to move it forward. Our sense is, that has to be done rather rapidly because there isn’t a lot of time left.
Interview With Nicholas Burns
Feb 29, 2008 (The Times of India)
Secretary Burns, I was just reading that I believe you were at the FPC, Foreign Press Center, yesterday and you asked for bold decision to be taken by the Indian government about the nuclear deal. And I was wondering what you meant. Are you asking the government to defy the sort of limited political mandate it has, knowing that it might precipitate an early election? Well, first of all let me say that the last thing I would wish to do is to interfere in the internal politics of India and with the coalition in India. So I will not do that and I will steer clear of that. But I will say this: this agreement between the United States and India is really an agreement between India and the world community. Because what it does is it brings India out of the isolation in which it’s been for well over 35 years. It allows India to be treated in a more egalitarian way. It allows India access to nuclear fuel and civil nuclear technology which will be critical for its economic development, for electricity production, and for the international goal of reducing carbon emissions. And it does all that, and it has its champions Russia, China, France, Britain and the United States. So I think it’s a deal that makes – if I could say this as an outsider – it really makes sense for India.
France Keen on Resuming Civil Nuclear Ties with India
Feb 28, 2008 (The Hindu Business Line)
Stressing on greater India-France strategic ties in the coming days, based on a shared concern for peace and stability in the world, the Ambassador of France in India, Mr Jerome Bonnafont, said here on Thursday that France was working with India and other parties “to define a system in which India could re-enter the global civil nuclear development arena”. Speaking at an interactive session organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce here on Thursday, Mr Bonnafont said his country was keen to resume civil nuclear cooperation with India, once the safeguards agreement with IAEA was in place. The Nuclear Suppliers’ Group first has to grant an exception to India,” he said. Admitting there was some worry over the raging political debate in India over the country’s proposed civil Nuclear deal with the US, the Ambassador said “France believes that if India should cooperate with the rest of the world in this area, it would be a win-win situation for India”, in terms of gaining access to modern nuclear technology.
US Negotiator Urges India Nuke Approval
Feb 28, 2008 (The New York Times)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The chief U.S. negotiator of a nuclear agreement with India said Thursday it will be impossible to complete this year unless India quickly makes a ''courageous decision'' to endorse it. President Bush, who leaves office next January, considers the pact a major accomplishment of his administration. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said a dispute within the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's governing coalition is jeopardizing an agreement that benefits both nations. ''I'm afraid it's time for the government to decide. We hope the decision will be positive,'' said Burns, who is retiring from the State Department next week. ''If India is to be given this great victory, which is so clearly in the Indian national interest, there has to be a courageous decision made by the government.'' India has been shunned by the world's nuclear powers since it conducted its first underground nuclear test in 1976. India has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, another reason that has kept the country out of the global civilian nuclear network.
India Shrugs Off US Nuclear Accord Warning
Feb 28, 2008 (AFP)
NEW DELHI (AFP) — India's foreign secretary on Thursday said he was working to seal a civilian nuclear deal with the United States, but cautioned that he did not see a deadline based on the US political calendar. The remarks came after US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday said that "the clock is ticking in terms of how much time is available to get all the different aspects of an agreement implemented" in a reference to US elections due in November 2008. Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said India would follow its own timeframe to implement the deal, which has been stalled by the national government's communist allies. "We are not looking at a deadline. We know the timetable, we know what to do," Menon told reporters after talks in New Delhi with US Under Secretary of Commerce Mario Mancuso on boosting bilateral high-technology trade. He said India hoped to conclude its ongoing negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, on various aspects of the agreement. "The government is trying and hoping to wrap up the agreement with the IAEA as soon as possible (but) these are negotiations.... They take two hands to clap," the Indian diplomat said.
U.S. and India to Strengthen Security Ties
Feb 28, 2008 (The New York Times)
NEW DELHI — With a landmark nuclear energy pact between the United States and India stalled, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Wednesday that the nations would nonetheless strengthen their security ties as India looked to embark on a closer — and still contentious — level of military cooperation with the United States. With its booming economy and a strong desire to upgrade Soviet-era weaponry, India has emerged as one of the world’s most prosperous arms markets. During two days of meetings with Indian officials, Mr. Gates pressed the case of American defense companies competing for multibillion-dollar contracts with the Indian government, including a coveted $10 billion fighter jet deal. But beyond the economic benefits of Indian military modernization, American officials contend that India can be an important stabilizing force in Asia and a critical counterweight to China’s regional ambitions.
Gates to Tell Turks to Wrap Up Iraq Op
Feb 27, 2008 (AP)
NEW DELHI (AP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday that he will tell Turkish leaders they need to wrap up their military operations in northern Iraq quickly, and that the ongoing assault must not last longer than a week or two…"It's very important that the Turks make this operation as short as possible and then leave. They have to be mindful of Iraqi sovereignty," said Gates, adding, "I measure quick in terms of days, a week or two, something like that, not months."…Gates had a similar message of rapid action for the Indian government here, saying that they need to move quickly to approve a landmark nuclear cooperation pact between India and the United States. "The clock is ticking in terms of how much time is available to get all the different aspects of this agreement implemented," he told reporters.
India Missile Test to Start Arms Race: Pakistan
Feb 27, 2008 (The New York Times)
KARACHI (Reuters) - India's successful test-firing of a nuclear-capable, submarine-launched missile will trigger a new arms race in the region, Pakistan's navy chief said on Wednesday. Nuclear-armed Pakistan and India have fought three wars since their partition and independence in 1947, and nearly went to war a fourth time in 2002, but relations have improved since they launched a peace process in 2004. India, already capable of launches from land and air, tested the new missile on Tuesday from a surfaced submarine -- a step closer to firing from under the sea and matching countries such as the United States, Russia, France and China. "These developments...put nuclear weapons at sea and it is a very, very serious issue," navy chief Admiral Muhammad Afzal Tahir told reporters in Karachi. "This is going to start a new arms race in the region," he was quoted as saying by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan. Indian officials say the K-15, a two-stage missile with a top range of 700 km (450 miles), will be eventually deployed with a domestically built nuclear submarine, after further tests.
U.S. - India to Study Missile Defense System
Feb 27, 2008 (The New York Times)
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The United States and India will study the possibility of a joint missile defense system, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday, stressing talks were only in their early stages. "We're just beginning to talk about perhaps conducting a joint analysis about what India's needs would be in the realm of missile defense and where cooperation between us might help advance that," Gates told reporters. Indian missile-defense cooperation with the United States could complicate relations with China, Russia and Pakistan. Until now, India's policy has been to develop its missile shield domestically, closing a potential multibillion-dollar market to American manufacturers Boeing Co, Lockheed Martin Corp, Raytheon Co and Northrop Grumman Corp -- the biggest players in the emerging ground, air, sea and space based U.S. missile defense system. But this may be changing in line with a breakthrough Indian decision to buy Lockheed's C-130J military transport aircraft earlier this year, U.S. defense officials said.
Gates Says U.S.-India Ties to Expand Regardless of Nuclear Deal
Feb 26, 2008 (Bloomberg)
Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said India and America can continue to expand their military cooperation regardless of the fate of a stalled civilian nuclear deal. During a news conference at the start of a two-day visit to New Delhi, Gates identified arms sales and joint military exercises as two areas where the relationship between the countries may grow. While expressing hope that the nuclear agreement may be salvaged, Gates added: ``I am here, independent of that, to see how we can expand the military-to-military relationship, independent of the civil nuclear agreement.'' Gates said he didn't see a risk for the U.S. in increasing its defense ties with India even as that country develops its nuclear weapons capability with measures such as today's test of a missile from an underwater site.
India Successfully Tests Submarine - Based Missile
Feb 26, 2008 (The New York Times)
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India successfully tested on Tuesday a submarine-launched missile which can carry a nuclear warhead, officials said, a move that boosts the country's deterrence capabilities. The K-15, a two-stage missile with a top range of 700 km (450 miles), was fired from a submerged pontoon in the Bay of Bengal and was seen leaving the sea off India's eastern coast. "It was a success," defense ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar said. India, already capable of launching missiles from land and air, now moves a step closer to firing them from under the sea, an important step in creating nuclear deterrence to match countries like the United States, Russia, France and China. Officials say the K-15 will be eventually deployed with a domestically built nuclear submarine, after further tests. India is developing a submarine capable of launching ballistic missiles, including the K-15 and the longer-range Brahmos supersonic cruise missile jointly developed with Russia.
Gates Meets Indian Officials
Feb 26, 2008 (The New York Times)
NEW DELHI (AP) -- India's quest to modernize its military against a backdrop of China's burgeoning defense growth and an ongoing regional terrorism threat were the focus of talks planned Tuesday with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. ''It is in our interest to develop this relationship,'' said Gates. ''Just as it is in the Indians' interest.'' The Pentagon chief was expected to raise the prospects of New Delhi's plan for a $10 billion fighter jet purchase -- which features bids from major U.S. defense contractors Boeing Corp. and Lockheed Martin. Gates arrived at midday for a series meetings with the prime minister, the minister of external affairs and other elected officials in the parliamentary government. His visit comes during a somewhat volatile time in the region. Talks have stalled on a landmark nuclear cooperation pact between India and the United States, and New Delhi continues to eye nervously the ongoing unrest and terrorism threats in neighboring Pakistan.
Ronen Sen Likely to Get Extension
Feb 25, 2008 (The Hindu)
New Delhi: Ronen Sen is being asked to continue as India’s Ambassador to the U.S. for one more year, it is understood. Mr. Sen’s extended tenure ends on March 31 and authoritative sources said the government is apparently not keen on replacing him at this moment when the India-U.S. nuclear deal is at a crucial stage. The 64-year-old diplomat has been in the U.S. since August 2004. Though the government earlier decided not to give him an extension, it is understood that there was a rethink. His being asked to continue is seen in the context of deepening India-U.S. relations in which he played a crucial role as also in the unfinished business of the nuclear deal. The government feels that his continuance will be helpful in the successful conclusion of the agreement.
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