WASHINGTON, July 11: India hopes that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s first state visit to Washington, which begins this weekend, will lead to the acquisition of civilian nuclear reactors from the US. Although the anti-proliferation lobby within the US administration is still opposed to selling reactors to a country which admits possessing nuclear weapons, insiders say President George W. Bush is sympathetic to India’s quest for the reactors.
Yet, the latest issue of ‘South Asia Monitor’, a Washington think-tank, includes New Delhi’s effort to acquire civilian nuclear technology from the US among the ‘sticky issues that will involve difficult negotiations’ during the visit. The other two issues on the Centre for Strategic and International Studies’ list are the expected sale of sensitive US defence technologies to India and New Delhi’s increasing ties with Iran to secure energy resources.
But the CSIS also notes that Mr Singh is visiting the US at a time of unprecedented cooperation between the two countries when bilateral economic ties continue to grow at a moderate pace, despite US domestic concern about outsourcing jobs to India.
During his three-day visit to the US from July 17, Mr Singh is also expected to abandon paid lobbyists who have been working for India in the US capital for nearly 15 years. Instead, the Indian government is depending on 10 of America’s most influential chief executives to plead its case in the US in return for commercial favours in India.
These 10 chief executives will work with 10 leaders of India’s corporate world through an institutionalized ‘CEO’s Forum’ in an innovative effort to advance Indo-US relations.
Next Monday, shortly after his reception on the South Lawn of the White House and talks with President George W. Bush, Mr Singh will launch the 20-member CEO’s Forum in Washington.
But reports in the US as well as the Indian media say that New Delhi is depending more on President Bush’s desire to enhancing Washington’s ties with India than on any lobby to get US nuclear reactors. According to these reports, in his frequent encounters with the Indian prime minister in recent months, including at the Gleneagles summit last week, Mr Bush has reportedly conveyed his empathy for India’s attempts to acquire civilian reactors from the international market.
But the reports also warn that Mr Bush’s enthusiasm for nuclear cooperation with India is not necessarily shared by the powerful interests in Washington who argue that selling reactors to New Delhi would violate US anti-proliferation laws.
Less than a week before Mr Singh’s scheduled arrival, India’s lobbyists -– paid or unpaid -– in Washington are still trying to assess if Mr Bush has the political will to overrule the bureaucratic opposition to nuclear cooperation with New Delhi.
They argue that when the US sells and finances the construction of civilian nuclear reactors in China, which often ignores America’s concerns on nuclear and other foreign policy issues, the Bush administration should not hesitate in offering the same cooperation to India.
Pro-Indian lobbies in Washington also say that it was the Bush administration that indicated a change in its nuclear policy towards India.
In March this year Condoleezza Rice, during her first visit to South Asia as the new US Secretary of State, indicated that the US was reconsidering its restrictions on extending nuclear and space cooperation to India.
When Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh visited Washington in April, the two countries established a high-level group on energy cooperation, led by India’s Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia and the US Energy Secretary Sam Baudman.
But since then, US officials have not said how close they were to supplying nuclear reactors to India. The Indians hope that this will be clarified during Mr Singh’s visit, and the two sides would soon be able to sign a deal.
