Facing elections, US clinches India nuclear trade waiver (3rd Roundup)

Sep 6, 2008, 13:43 GMT

Vienna - The United States suceeded in convincing countries that export nuclear technology to approve trade with India on Saturday, in a boost to the rising Asian power's nuclear energy ambitions.

India will now, pending final approval in the US Congress, be able to access global nuclear markets for its growing atomic energy programme, despite the fact that it has not signed the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty.

At the end of a three-day meeting in Vienna of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which sets nuclear export rules, diplomats said they reached consensus on an export waiver for India.

The trade waiver is an essential part of Washington's 2005 nuclear trade deal with New Delhi, which is seen as as a cornerstone for improving strategic relations.

'This is a forward-looking and momentous decision', India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said. 'It marks the end of India's decades- long isolation from the nuclear mainstream and of the technology denial regime.'

It was a 'historic moment for the Nuclear Suppliers Group, for India, for US-Indian relations, indeed, India's relations with the rest of the world,' US Undersecretary of State John Rood told reporters in Vienna.

India's declaration on Friday about its commitments to nuclear non-proliferation was key to making a decision possible.

The draft trade exemption now includes a direct reference to a statement by Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, in which he said his country was committed to a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing and reconfirmed New Delhi's commitment to non-proliferation.

'The NSG decision states explicitly that the present exemption is being granted on the basis of these commitments,' the Austrian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland were the most vocal of the 45 NSG members in insisting that the trade exemption should take the possibility of an Indian nuclear weapons test into consideration.

India had been holding out against any mention of trade being linked to testing nuclear devices

There had been 'intense pressure' from the US to agree to the waiver, and Washington talked to critical countries at the highest levels on Friday, a participant of the NSG meeting said.

Some other provisions had also been added to the waiver, Austria said, including a clause under which nuclear exporters should inform each other about trade with India, as well as 'revision and control mechanisms' for the exemption.

'This is an important moment also for the strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime,' Rood said.

The Nuclear Suppliers Group was formed in reaction to India's first atomic weapons test in 1974, which it conducted using foreign nuclear technology.

Apart from the US, countries such as France and Russia are hoping to win lucrative nuclear contracts with India, which plans to build at least eight new nuclear reactors by 2012.

'We look forward to establishing a mutually beneficial partnership with friendly countries in an area which is important for both global energy security as well as to meet the challenge of climate change,' Manmohan Singh said on Saturday.

Singh is set to travel to France at the end of September, where he is expected to finalize a bilateral nuclear trade agreement. A similar meeting with Russia is planned for later this year.

If US vendors won two of these contracts, it would create 3,000 to 5,000 new domestic jobs, according to the US State Department.

Members of Indian left-wing parties which withdrew support to the government of Manmohan Singh over the India-US deal said they would continue to oppose it as it went against India's strategic and economic interests and it had 'bypassed' parliament.

'We have given up our right to test forever ... we cannot invest billions of dollars and test,' opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesman Yashwant Sinha said.

There were scenes of celebration at the offices of the Congress Party, the leading member of Singh's coalition government.

'34 years of nuclear apartheid has crumbled today,' Congress Party spokesman Manish Tiwari said.