The Telegraph -Kolkata | White House date for seal on deal

The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Frontpage | White House date for seal on deal

White House date for seal on deal

K.P. NAYAR

Bush, Singh Washington, Sept. 11: Three years, two months and one week after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush stunned the world by announcing an end to India’s long nuclear winter, the two men will finally seal the Indo-US nuclear deal in the White House on September 25. The White House announced today that “the President... looks forward to welcoming Prime Minister Singh to the White House on September 25, 2008, to strengthen the strategic partnership (with India) and build upon our progress in other areas of co-operation, such as agriculture, education, trade, and defence”. If all goes well, Bush will sign into law the various components of the nuclear deal at the White House on September 25 in the presence of Singh and the US Congressional leadership, thereby operationalising it. Bush administration officials burned a lot of midnight oil this week to transmit the nuclear deal package to the US Congress before today, the seventh anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks here, a day of solemnity when routine and mundane things are put aside for a day of solidarity and national renewal. Bush sent the package to Capitol Hill within hours after defence minister A.K. Antony met the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and national security adviser Stephen Hadley. “I think they are confident” of the deal’s passage in Congress during its current term, Antony told Indian reporters her after the meetings. Bush vigorously pursued the deal up to its last hurdle although Antony, in his characteristic style, declined to give any assurance to US defence secretary Robert Gates 24 hours earlier that US manufacturers could bag the biggest military aviation deal in history for 126 multi-role combat aircraft (MRCA) for the Indian Air Force. Antony poured cold water on Washington’s enthusiasm for the MRCA order when he told Indian reporters that a decision on awarding the contract will be taken only by the next government in New Delhi after the Lok Sabha elections. But he offered a level playing field for the Americans and complete transparency and honesty in awarding the contract, a well-known hallmark of Antony’s entire political career. If the Indians refused to make any new compromises in seeing the nuclear deal through in its final phase, Bush also stood by the controversial commitments made by the US state department in its secret letter to the US Congress in January over the interpretation of the deal. The contents of the letter created a political storm in India on the eve of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) meeting on September 4. In his message to the US Congress transmitting the nuclear deal package, Bush repeated the state department’s assertion in the secret letter that assurances “concerning reliable supply of nuclear fuel given to India” are only “political commitments” and that passage of the nuclear deal by Congress “does not, however, transform these political commitments into legally binding commitments”. In plain language, it will be up to the next President and his successors to decide at any time whether they want to stick to those “political commitments”. Lest it should revive the furore in India about alleged US duplicity, Bush left open an exit route by arguing that there are no legally binding commitments because the agreement under section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954 is intended only as a “framework agreement” that allows for further sub-pacts. Bush also reiterated the secret commitment to Congress in January that “sensitive nuclear technology, heavy-water production technology and production facilities, sensitive nuclear facilities, and major critical components of such facilities may not be transferred under the” deal to India. He assured Congress that unless India “establishes a new national reprocessing facility dedicated to reprocessing under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards and both parties agree on arrangements and procedures under which the reprocessing or other alteration in form or content will take place”, reprocessing clauses in the deal “will not come into effect”. The Prime Minister will arrive in New York for the UN General Assembly on September 23 before travelling to the White House for a half-day engagement two days later. The White House routinely discourages leaders visiting New York for the General Assembly from making a detour to Washington, but the exception being made for Singh is a signal of the importance Bush attaches to his friendship with a Prime Minister who staked his government to pursue the nuclear deal.