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India, USA close to nuclear deal, says Burns
Ashish Kumar Sen writes from Washington

A few “barriers” remain in the U.S.-India nuclear deal but both nations are very close to reaching an agreement on a plan to separate India’s civilian and military nuclear facilities, a senior Bush administration official said on Friday.

That breakthrough could come before U.S. President George W. Bush’s visit to India in March.

The Bush administration’s point person on the July 18 deal, Under Secretary R. Nicholas Burns, who has been involved in months of negotiations with his Indian counterparts, said, “Often in negotiations when you get to the end, some of the most difficult issues arise. And I think we made some progress. I think we need to see further progress.” He said he didn’t believe the few issues that remain were insuperable.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview to Reuters that India had “difficult choices” to make before the deal could be completed. Mr. Burns said some of the difficulties in the negotiations stem from “the fact this is a unique arrangement.”

Noting that India had developed its nuclear power industry in isolation over 30 years, he said, the US thinks it’s much better to have India take part in the international nonproliferation regime and to have International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards on the civilian aspect of its nuclear facilities.

He said it was up to the Indian government to define its civilian and military facilities and then produce a plan to separate them. “We obviously have to be reassured that that plan is ambitious enough that it will meet the test of the Congress and also the Nuclear Suppliers Group looking at this plan ,” Mr Burns said. He said the Bush administration was committed to concluding the deal with the Indian government.

Earlier this week, US Ambassador to India David Mulford suggested India’s vote on referring Iran to the United Nations Security Council over its nuclear programme could affect the fate of the US-India deal in the US Congress. The remarks seen as encroaching on India’s sovereignty, were criticised in New Delhi.

Mr Burns said the response to Mr Mulford’s “personal opinion” had been “blown out of proportion.”

Mr Burns said, "Both I and Mr Mulford have a right in international politics to articulate our own views, and the ambassador and I have both done just that.”

Describing Mr Mulford as an “outstanding ambassador”, whom the Bush administration was proud to have serving in New Delhi, Mr Burns said the US has been “clear with India, Brazil, South Africa and with China and Russia that we believe Iran had been giving many months to conform to the IAEA’s wishes, to negotiate on the basis of the European proposals or the Russian proposal.”

“It’s turned them all down. So the US position is that there has to be a vote at the IAEA and the referral should go to the Security Council,” he added.

Mr Mulford had indicated the nuclear deal would “die” in Congress if India did not vote against Iran.

Asked by the Tribune if the fate of the agreement hinged on India’s vote at the IAEA, Mr Burns said, “I learnt as a spokesman ten years ago never to answer a hypothetical question.”