U.S. Letter Puts India's Premier On Defensive Over Nuclear Deal

Washington Post
Sep 5, 2008

NEW DELHI: As international negotiators met in Vienna to decide the fate of the contentious nuclear energy agreement between India and the United States, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government found itself facing a revived political battle at home over the deal because of the release of a secret letter in Washington. The letter's disclosure caught India's government by surprise, a senior government official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The official added that opponents of the deal probably made it public to try to weaken India in the final stages of efforts to win approval from the 45-country Nuclear Suppliers Group in Vienna. But more than the Vienna deliberations, the Indian official said, Singh faces the bigger challenge of rescuing the government's plummeting popularity. The secret letter, written by the State Department to the U.S. Congress in January, states explicitly that the supply of nuclear fuel to India would stop if India were to conduct a nuclear test, contradicting assurances Singh gave to Indians in the past year.