NEW DELHI, July 20: A controversial nuclear cooperation deal for civilian projects between India and the United States may cast a shadow on the nuclear CBM talks between Islamabad and New Delhi scheduled here on August 5 and 6, diplomats and analysts said on Tuesday.

The additional secretary-level India-Pakistan talks were originally expected to consider the usual agenda of advance notification of missile tests that the two countries have not yet resolved.

Issues such as the corridor of the missile tests and the point of impact as well as differences over the type of nuclear-capable missiles to be brought under the purview of their discussions has so far been the staple fare of these meetings.

Indications are growing though that Pakistan will now “study and react appropriately” to the outcome of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s meeting with President George W. Bush, mainly looking at the nuclear content, diplomatic sources said.

Indian news reports suggest that the Bush administration has agreed to cooperate with India on nuclear issues, including the supply of scarce fuel for the Tarapore reactor. This was also the view taken by Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran.

According to him, President Bush has made a commitment to cooperate with India on nuclear energy, and New Delhi, on its part is making a reciprocal commitment to place civilian nuclear reactors and not military nuclear reactors under IAEA safeguards. “That, in fact, is what the US and other nuclear weapon powers have done,” Mr. Saran told reporters in Washington. The principle of reciprocity which has been agreed upon, he said, is very important. “There is very good balance in the joint statement. We have committed ourselves to do exactly what other nuclear states with advanced technology are prepared to do,” Mr Saran said.

Pakistani officials in New Delhi have been watching the progress of the nuclear talks with apprehension, pointing out that any agreement along the lines would violate the mandate of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. American officials too expressed similar apprehensions in Washington, according to The Times of India.

“A firestorm of protest has erupted from Washington’s nuclear non-proliferation pundits over the Bush administration’s nuclear deal with India, indicating just how difficult it will be for the agreement to bear results,” The Times reported on Tuesday. “Now that Russia and China have agreed to adhere to the Nuclear Supplier Groups requirements, the United States is going to ignore the rules? “What will Russia say when they want to supply more nuclear materials or technology to Iran?” asked Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts.

“You can be sure that Pakistan will demand equal treatment. Will the Bush administration soon be announcing equal treatment with them?” Markey, a senior Democrat on the House Energy Committee, said in a statement quoted by the Times. The lawmaker threatened to introduce legislation in Congress “to make sure we don’t jeopardize the delicate balance of our existing non-proliferation policy.” Others invoked the possibility of countries such as Brazil, Japan and South Korea, which have refrained from producing nuclear weapons because they are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, being tempted to go overtly nuclear in the hopes of getting similar treatment as India.

“If you open the door for India, a lot of other countries are likely to step through it,” Leonard Spector, deputy director of the Monterey Center for Non-proliferation Studies was quoted as saying. “China is already thinking of selling additional reactors to Pakistan.”

The Times quoted Indian officials as dismissing the criticism as “reflexive and knee-jerk” reactions, pointing out that the agreement also envisaged greater accountability from New Delhi, including expanding safe-guards to Indian nuclear facilities that benefit from foreign inputs.

They pointed out that the critics had ignored the fact that India had committed to reciprocally assume the same responsibilities and practices to acquire the same benefits and advantages as other leading countries with advanced nuclear technology, such as the United States “nothing more, nothing less.”