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Friday, Mar 23, 2007
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International - India & World

India for keeping future test out of `123 agreement'

Amit Baruah

Voluntary moratorium will not translate into legal commitment

Talks on 123 agreement next week India will stress its right to reprocess spent fuel

NEW DELHI: India does not want a reference to any future nuclear test in the text of the still-under-negotiation bilateral civilian nuclear agreement with the United States, official sources said on Thursday.

New Delhi, they maintained, wanted to retain the voluntary nature of its moratorium on future testing, but was keen on ensuring that this did not translate itself into a legal commitment in the civilian nuclear accord, known as the "123 agreement."

Concern over Hyde Act

This Indian concern flows from the reference in the Hyde Act, passed by theU.S. Congress last December, that the cooperation with New Delhi would be halted if India were to test a nuclear device after the passage of the Act.

Detailed negotiations on the contours of the "123 agreement" are expected next week, with the arrival of a U.S. delegation led by Richard Stratford, Director in the State Department's Office of Nuclear Energy Affairs, here over the weekend.

Pointing out that the talks would be the first detailed exercise after the passage of the Act, the sources said India would negotiate hard on its right to reprocess spent nuclear fuel.

(In a recent interview to the Press Trust of India, Anil Kakodar, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, said, "We want reprocessing rights upfront... Reprocessing is a non-negotiable right.")

According to the sources, the idea is to narrow down differences on a range of issues. They confirmed that India had given a response to several points in an American draft version of the 123 agreement.

It was up to the U.S. to live up to its commitments contained in the July 2005 civilian nuclear understanding and the March 2006 separation plan, agreed on between the two nations, the sources said.

They stressed that the American side believed that the provisions in the Hyde Act would not come in the way of implementing Washington's commitments to India as per the July 2005 joint statement and the March 2006 separation plan.

On fuel assurances to India, the sources said the Americans had not indicated anything that suggested they were backing away from an issue of critical importance to New Delhi given its Tarapur experience.

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