Talks hit snag over nuclear state status

New Delhi: US President George W. Bush will have to take a political decision whether India is to be recognised as a nuclear weapons state.

The talks on the US-India civil nuclear agreement have got bogged down at the official level over the US reluctance to give India this status without which it will be subject to the most intrusive inspections after signing the IAEA Additional Protocol as per the nuclear agreement.

Under the provisions a nuclear weapon state can place any nuclear facility of theirs into the civilian list or withdraw a facility from the civilian list without giving any explanation.

US officials from the level of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have given India glowing certificates of being a responsible nuclear power but the Bush administration is not willing to give the government this privilege.

Sources said that this had been made clear at the political level at the onset and the Department of Atomic Energy is reportedly not even making this demand.

The real bone of contention centres around India's agreement to sign the Additional Protocol that is highly restrictive for non-nuclear weapon states and fairly flexible for nuclear states. India has been claiming nuclear weapon state status ever since the Pokharan blasts.

In fact the US has made it repeatedly clear that India is not being recognised as a nuclear weapon state.

Undersecretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns told the senate foreign relations committee last November, "We determined from the start that we could not recognise India as a nuclear weapons state. Such a step would weaken the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT] and would be logically inconsistent with US policy. It was equally clear that India would not become a party to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapons state."

Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security Robert G. Joseph said: "We have sought to clarify that the US does not and will not support India's nuclear weapons programme.

"We are obligated under the NPT not to assist India's nuclear weapons programme. Our initiative with India does not recognise India as a nuclear state, and we will not seek to renegotiate the NPT, whether to change the Treaty definition of a nuclear weapon state or in any other way."