Indo-US N-deal: Last leg over, now on to fine prints

The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) will meet next week where the political leaders will review the outcome of the negotiations that were spearheaded by the top bureaucrats with their US counterparts during the last four days of discussions in Washington over the Indo-US civilian nuclear energy cooperation.

New Delhi, July 22 : The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) will meet next week where the political leaders will review the outcome of the negotiations that were spearheaded by the top bureaucrats with their US counterparts during the last four days of discussions in Washington over the Indo-US civilian nuclear energy cooperation.

Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, who had termed the latest round of negotiations as the 'last leg', had sent a team of top officials -National Security Adviser M K Narayanan, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar- to Washington to finalise the 123-agreement, the operational part of the Indo-US nuclear deal.

The negotiations over the agreement had met a roadblock over India's right to reprocess spent nuclear fuels.

Four days of intense negotiations in Washington helped India gain the right to reprocess spent nuclear fuel after Dr. Singh had floated the idea of New Delhi's readiness to set up a dedicated facility to store spent fuels during his meeting with US President George Bush on the sidelines of the G-8 Summit in Heiligendamm in Germany.

Though the final text of the agreement is yet to be unveiled, sources in the External Affairs Ministry said that it would be 'unique'.

Narayanan, who had pitched for including nuclear deal critic, Anil Kakodkar, in the team played a pivotal role in breaking the stalemate that crept in January.

In spite of several rounds of negotiations between US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns and Menon, since then, the talks on the 123-agreement failed to make substantial headways.

Narayanan met US Vice President Dick Cheney on the second day of his tour in the White House and both of them are credited to have taken out the nuclear deal not only from its winter but also from a narrow precinct to a larger strategic picture.

Kakodkar, who had prepared a list of concerns of the scientists over the deal, has reportedly expressed his happiness over the outcome of this round of negotiations.

The political leaders will now analyse whether the agreement reached could be able to evoke a general consensus on the nuclear cooperation that had met equal number of supports and criticisms in both the countries.

The agreement, which was reached after Bush directed Burns and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to put the terms of India's reprocessing rights and other contentious issues in acceptable terms, will be released only after the CCS gives its nod.

ANI