Consensus NUKED

 Managing 45 countries, part of an elite cartel controlling the world's nuclear trade, was never going to be easy. The inconclusive meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) that ended in Vienna on August 22 after two days of hectic deliberations was in a way along predictable lines.

The NSG members were to agree by consensus whether its existing ban on trade in civilian nuclear energy with a country like India, that has neither signed the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nor the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), should be lifted. Many of the countries in the group have no nuclear technology to sell. But they have a strong sense of sovereignty and a strong position on nuclear non-proliferation. Some, like Austria and New Zealand, are going to face an election shortly and, therefore, do not want to give the impression that they are diluting their position to accommodate a non signatory of the NPT.

Indeed, all NSG decisions are taken by consensus and that is why the views of every single country in the 45-member group become so important. If one of them wants, they can easily play spoiler. Although, earlier in the month, at least 19 of them, who are also in the 35-member board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had unanimously agreed to a "safeguards" agreement between India and the agency. They all seemed to have bought IAEA Director General Mohammed Al Baradei's argument that it would serve the world better if most of the Indian nuclear plants -14 out of the 22- were brought under the agency's supervision and inspection.

However, neither the outcome of the IAEA negotiations nor the draft, prepared and circulated by the Americans seeking an "exemption" for India, seemed to have helped NSG members to come to a conclusion and air it in one voice. The 45 members of the group will reassemble again on September 4/5 either in Vienna or Berlin - since Germany now has the chair of the NSG - to take yet another shot at the proposed "waiver" that is being sought for India. This time they will deliberate on a changed draft that should accommodate some of the "concerns" expressed by the NSG members on what happens to global non-proliferation, if special concessions are made for India.

The Indo-US nuclear deal that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W Bush plan to sign cannot be implemented unless it gets the final approval from the American Congress. But before that India needs a "safeguards" agreement with the IAEA and a "waiver" from the NSG.

Getting the NSG to lift its current ban is only part of the Indian worry. It also has to worry about whether the "waiver" from the NSG leaves it with enough time to put it before the US Congress for the final approval before its session ends on September 26. After that the Congress will only reassemble in January next year as for the next few months the focus in the US will be on the presidential elections. Moreover, the January session, which is only for a day, is kept for the ‘State of the Union' by President Bush - his last address to the nation before he hands over the mantle to the next president of the country.

In the US system, a Bill - in this case the 123 agreement that seeks civil nuclear cooperation between India and the US - that has not got Congressional approval is not "carried forward."

But the scenario may not be as bleak. Some optimists in South Block even say that it has more than "80 per cent chance" of seeing it through the NSG. But two things are important for that -first, the language of the new draft and to what extent India feels comfortable in accepting the changed wordings and second, whether the schedule in the US Congress can be reworked.