M A I N   N E W S

US firmly backs NSG clean waiver to India
Ashok Tuteja/TNS

New Delhi, June 30
The United States today assured New Delhi that it “strongly and vehemently” supported the clean waiver given to India by the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) in September 2008 to undertake nuclear commerce.

“I want to say that the US and the Obama Administration strongly and vehemently support the clean waiver to India. The 123 civil nuclear legislation also underscores our support for India in this debate that is going on and our law also points to the clean waiver for India,” outgoing American Ambassador to India Timothy J Roemer told reporters here.

His comments brought a sigh of relief in South Block in the backdrop of the recent decision of the NSG at its meeting in the Netherlands to push for more stringent norms for access to enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology by countries which are not signatories to the NPT.

The new guidelines of the nuclear cartel have caused much disquiet in India, with some seeing in it a move to question the “clean waiver” granted to it. India has since then established contacts with major countries to seek assurances that the NSG’s decision would not have any adverse impact on the India-specific agreement with the 46-member nuclear cartel. The US, France and Russia are among the top countries which have signed civil nuclear deals with India since it got the nuclear waiver three years back.

The American envoy said: “With India’s commitment and as they look to ratify the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (CSC) and they work closely with the US companies, I am hopeful that the civil nuclear agreement will continue to move in a positive direction.”

On the issue of pat-down searches on Indian dignitaries at the US airports which caused minor strains in Indo-American ties, Roemer said Washington was working on these issues to prevent their recurrence in future. The effort was to ensure that when a minister or a VIP from India was travelling to the US, his visit took place without any untoward incident.

Roemer said looking at the bigger picture, one would find that India and the US have come closer to each other in the last 10 years and many “positive developments” have taken place during this period between the two countries. “We are working closely today in the fields of intelligence sharing and counter-terrorism. We are working together on global issues and both India and the US want a peaceful Afghanistan,” he said.

Roemer said the media should also concentrate on the positives of the relationship along with the “occasional hiccups and the challenges faced by it.

Burleigh is interim US ambassador

New Delhi: Albert Peter Burleigh will take over as the interim US Ambassador to India tomorrow. Burleigh (69) is no stranger to India, having temporarily served as charge d'affaires at the US Embassy in New Delhi from April to July 2009, after David Mulford completed his tenure as ambassador here and before Tim Roemer took up his assignment as the American envoy in New Delhi.

Big Relief

• Timothy Roemer’s comments brought a sigh of relief in South Block in the backdrop of the recent decision by Nuclear Suppliers’ Group to push for more stringent norms for access to enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology by countries, which are not signatories to the NPT.
• The new guidelines of the nuclear cartel had caused much disquiet in India, with some seeing in it a move to question the “clean waiver” granted to it.
• New Delhi has since then established contacts with major countries to seek assurances that the NSG’s decision would not have any adverse impact on the India-specific agreement with the 46-member nuclear cartel.

PM reminds France of its commitment
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 30
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has made it very clear that he expects France to keep its commitments to transfer nuclear enrichment and reprocessing technology as part of its bilateral civilian nuclear deal with India.

In his interaction with print media editors on Wednesday, Manmohan Singh revealed that French President Nicolas Sarkozy had made a specific commitment to him that he would honour the commitment to supply India with enrichment technology.

“During my visit to France last July, the issue that some people were trying to modify Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines (that nuclear enrichment technology should not be sold to non-NPT countries) came up at the banquet hosted by President Sarkozy. And the President assured me, in front of all the people present, that ‘you can take it from me, I am willing to go public that we (France) stand by our commitments’,” Manmohan Singh told the editors. He also stated that Russia had made a similar commitment.

National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon said: “We have bilateral commitments from each of our partners. They have assured us that they will meet those commitments. They don’t see it as contradictory. Frankly, we don’t know what they have decided yet. So we will see how it works out.”