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Make the IAEA agreement public

The Manmohan Singh government reckons it is make or break time for its civilian nuclear deal with the Bush administration. The bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement (the ‘123’) concluded in August 2007, read in the context of the Hyde Act and the developing strategic partnership with the United States, has faced unbudging political opposition from the Left parties that keep alive the minority United Progressive Alliance regime. The main opposition, the Bharat iya Janata Party, is against the deal on quite different grounds. Wednesday’s meeting of the coordination committee of the UPA and the Left on the nuclear issue could well be the last in the series. The Left parties were persuaded to let the government go to the International Atomic Energy Agency secretariat and negotiate a draft safeguards agreement, which covers all Indian civilian nuclear facilities to be placed under safeguards once the Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement goes into effect. What that ‘frozen text’ contains is something of a mystery. Among the key issues the “India-specific” safeguards agreement is supposed to address is the country’s right to take unspecified “corrective measures” if international supplies of nuclear fuel for the safeguarded reactors are disrupted for any reason. India insisted on this right in exchange for agreeing to place its civilian reactors under “in perpetuity” safeguards during the protracted negotiations in 2006 on the Indian separation plan. This provision was duly incorporated into the March 2, 2006 separation plan as well as in the 123 text.

How the Indian and IAEA negotiators have squared the circle of perpetuity and corrective measures remains to be seen. There are five legal steps that need to be taken if the Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear deal is to be implemented. The frozen text represents only half of the first step, which is to get approval for the safeguards agreement from the IAEA’s Board of Governors. Getting the Nuclear Suppliers Group to amend its export rules to allow civilian nuclear exports to India is the second step, after which the 123 agreement will require U.S. Congressional approval, India’s signature on the IAEA safeguards agreement, and its filing a declaration with the IAEA on precisely which facilities are civilian and are to be safeguarded. The UPA government has expressed its unwillingness to share the safeguards agreement even with its political allies, on the ground that it has not been sent yet to the IAEA’s Board of Governors. This is an untenable argument. The UPA’s allies are being asked, in effect, to support an agreement sight unseen. Moreover, the IAEA safeguards agreement is not some routine affair. It is part of a project that vitally concerns India’s nuclear energy and strategic future over the long term. Non-consultation, non-transparency, and a secretive mindset characterised the handling of the nuclear deal from the time it was initiated in July 2005. The safeguards agreement negotiated with the IAEA secretariat must be placed before the UPA-Left coordination committee on Wednesday — and immediately thereafter made public.

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