World | India
Delhi launches charm offensive
With the trust vote behind it, the Manmohan Singh government is going all out to win the support of the IAEA board and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which are expected to decide soon on giving India a passport to global trade in nuclear fuel and technologies.
- IANS
- Published: 00:03 July 24, 2008
New Delhi: With the trust vote behind it, the Manmohan Singh government is going all out to win the support of the IAEA board and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which are expected to decide soon on giving India a passport to global trade in nuclear fuel and technologies.
The government is planning to deploy three of its ministers and top-ranking envoys with decades of experience in international diplomacy on the "charm NSG" mission, an official source said.
These emissaries will travel to capitals of key NSG countries, particularly non-committal ones like China and those who are wedded to a strong non-proliferation agenda like Ireland, Austria and Norway.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's special envoy and former foreign secretary Shyam Saran left for Dublin within hours of the government winning the trust vote on Tuesday night. Ireland is a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors and the NSG and is known for its hawkish stance on non-proliferation issues.
Later this week, Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma will travel to South Africa, which gave up its nuclear programme to join the NPT (nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty) in the 1990s, to win the support of Africa's most influential country in the NSG.
Sharma is already working on influential NSG countries like Australia and New Zealand, whose ministers are attending the Asean Regional Forum ministerial meeting in Singapore.
While Minister in Prime Minister's office Prithviraj Chavan will be going to Beijing, which has yet to take a position on the nuclear deal, Foriegn Secretary Shivshankar Menon may go to Washington, an official source said.
India is likely to fine-tune details of its NSG strategy when US Undersecretary for Political Affairs William Burns comes here next month.
Over 20 countries of the NSG are also members of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The IAEA secretariat will circulate the text of the India-specific safeguards agreement to all its members Friday before the board of governors to take a decision on approving the safeguards pact on August 1 in Vienna.
Pakistan, a member of the IAEA board, has already raised objections to the proposed safeguards agreement that India has sought with the UN nuclear watchdog. India has therefore stepped up its diplomatic efforts to ensure that Pakistan and other sceptics like Ireland do not force a voting in the IAEA on the India-specific safeguards pact.
New York (IANS) With New Delhi having done its part to salvage the nuclear deal, it is now the US Congress' turn to shake India's outstretched hand, major American newspapers said yesterday while doubting whether Congress will be able to ratify the pact before the Bush administration bows out.
The Washington Post said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's gamble of trading Communist support for that of a smaller regional party paid off when his government survived trust vote. "Now, the question is whether the pact can survive the American political process?" it asked. The likely outcome of Congress now rejecting the deal is that India, freshly approved as a customer for technology and fuel by the IAEA and the NSG, will simply buy its requirement of nuclear capacity from France or Russia, the Post said.
The Wall Street Journal said that US businesses that see a big market in India have pinned high hopes on the deal's ratification. Both presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, have suggested they favour the deal.
The New York Times quoted Manmohan Singh as saying that the confidence vote on the nuclear deal would signal to the world that "India is prepared to take its rightful place in the comity of nations.
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