The Hindu : Front Page : Consensus still possible: Manmohan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 21, 2007
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Consensus still possible: Manmohan

Harish Khare

ON BOARD THE PRIME MINISTER’S SPECIAL AIRCRAFT: On his way to the India-ASEAN summit in Singapore, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday sounded confident that the government would be able to build “a viable national consensus” on the Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear agreement.

Interacting with journalists, Dr. Singh admitted that there was “some delay” in concluding the nuclear deal, but “I still hope that the process of bringing about a viable national consensus will yield results. I have not given up hope that we can reach a final satisfactory outcome.”

Asked whether it was feasible to hope that an India-specific agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency could be brought before the UPA-Left committee before the year-end, he said: “Negotiations are going to begin with the IAEA. I hope they can be brought to a successful conclusion,” whereafter it could be vetted by the panel.

Pressed further what would happen if such a consensus proved elusive, Dr. Singh said, “We will cross the bridge when we come to it.”

However, he sought to remove the misperceptions on India not signing the agreement with Russia on nuclear reactors during his recent visit to Moscow. “We have entered into an MoU with Russia on Koodankulam for additional reactors. But it has been made known to us that the agreement can be operationalised only if [we] have any India-specific safeguards agreement with the IAEA. And also if the Nuclear Suppliers Group gives India the exemption from their respective guidelines.”

As the Prime Minister put it, there was no point in signing something that could not be put into practice.

“Since there has been some hitch in finalising the India-specific safeguards agreement with the IAEA and we are yet to go to the NSG, it was felt that it will be premature to sign an agreement which we cannot operationalise.”

He added: “We have been discussing with Russia, and it is agreed that these four reactors will be installed as soon as we have an India-specific safeguards agreement and as soon as the NSG says okay.”

On the UPA’s allies’ lukewarm support to the nuclear deal with Washington, Dr. Singh conceded that with hindsight, it would indeed appear that things could have been done differently.

“There is always scope for improvement.”

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