The Hindu : Front Page : India will have same obligations as nuclear weapons states: Saran

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 20, 2005

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Front Page

India will have same obligations as nuclear weapons states: Saran

N. Ravi

Working group to be set up to take action to fulfil commitments

WASHINGTON DC: The commitments India has made, in the joint statement issued here on Monday, include identifying and separating civilian and military nuclear facilities, filing a declaration on its civilian facilities with the IAEA, "taking a decision to place voluntarily its civilian nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards," continuing its unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing, working with the U.S. on a fissile material cut off treaty, supporting international non-proliferation efforts through a comprehensive export control legislation and adhering to the guidelines of the Missile Technology Control Regime and the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

IAEA safeguards

Asked if the decision to place the nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards was not a departure from the current policy, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, in a briefing said India would take on exactly the same obligations as the nuclear weapons states including the U.S. did. There would be no discriminatory safeguards that India would have to follow. The Indian objection had all along been to obligations that discriminated between nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states and not to any obligations at all that would be taken on by the nuclear weapons states as well.

The two leaders agreed to set up a working group to "undertake in a phased manner in the months ahead the necessary actions mentioned above to fulfill these commitments." The progress in this area would be reviewed when Mr. Bush visited India in 2006.

An official source said the breakthrough in civilian nuclear energy was made possible at the start of the talks by Mr. Bush's declaration of commitment to work closely with India in this area and his instructions to the US officials to work out the modalities to make that possible.

Economic dialogue

The cooperation in nuclear energy overshadowed all else in the joint statement which also spoke of the economic dialogue and the CEOs Forum, combating terrorism and concluding a comprehensive U.N. convention on terrorism by September and expressed satisfaction over the New Framework for India-U.S. Defence Relationship "as a basis for future cooperation, including in the field of defence technology."

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