The United States and India still have a considerable amount of work to do to bridge differences in negotiations on the civilian nuclear agreement, according to a US official.

In a background interview with the Tribune, the State Department official said the US was willing to make concessions to India in the talks for the sake of a long term relationship. In return, President George W. Bush’s negotiators expect their Indian counterparts to be prepared to enter discussions with an open mind.

Tortuous negotiations on the 123 Agreement, which gets its name from the Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act that governs US nuclear pacts, have made little progress over the past few months. A technical-level meeting in London earlier this week failed to achieve a breakthrough and the initial optimism that followed a meeting between US, under secretary of state R. Nicholas Burns and foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon in Washington on May 1 fizzled when Menon returned to New Delhi.

Fred McGoldrick, a former State Department official who has negotiated modern peaceful nuclear cooperation agreements with US allies, said negotiators "will need to use imaginative ways to soften things."

"The real problem lies in trying to get the Indian nuclear establishment to accept the legal language the US is trying to put into the agreement," McGoldrick said.

Unsatisfied with the pace of progress in the negotiations, Burns had postponed a visit to New Delhi in the week of May 21. He has suggested elevating talks to the political level and that opportunity is likely to come up in June when Bush and Manmohan Singh meet at the G8 summit in Germany.

Bush administration officials have expressed concern that a further delay in finalising the 123 Agreement could lead to a loss of momentum in favour of the deal in Washington. Bush has 18 months left in office. "If differences are not resolved before June end, Congress wont have time to review it before September," said Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association. "The clock is ticking. After that you go into an election year."

The supreme court on Friday debunked government contention that the constitutional petitions of the suspended chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, did not relate to a matter of public interest.

“With so much blood spilling on the streets, how can we believe it is not a matter of public interest,” Justice Ramday observed.

Ramday who is presiding over the 13-judge Full Court bench of the SC hearing the petitions, said the court is trying to find out whether it has the jurisdiction to hear the petitions on a case pending before the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) to which the President has sent a reference against the chief justice.

Justice Ramday observed that there was no margin of error in the SJC. What is the guarantee that the SJC will deliver a perfect finding and make no error? he questioned.

Justice Idftikhar's lead attorney continued his arguments on the maintainability of the petitions for the third day before the court adjourned hearing till Monday. Ahsan submitted that the council has a limited scope and is not even competent to pass a judgement but only has to compile a report on its findings. He said he was not challenging the proceedings in the SJC as has been contended by the government lawyers.

"How can a panel which is not empowered to pass a verdict suspend a chief justice," questioned Aitzaz while referring to the SJC meeting that had restrained the chief justice from working and virtually put him on suspension.He said the findings of the SJC may or may not be accepted by the President in case it finds any judge guilty. However, the President cannot reject a recommendation that absolves the impugned judge.

A lively debate ensued when Ahsan referred to the case of dismissal of Junejo government and assembly by Gen. Zia in 1988.

In a related development, the government has notified appointment of a Lahore high court judge to probe the murder of additional registrar of the court, Hammad Raza and asked him to submit report within 14 days. The supreme court took suo moto notice of the murder and directed the government to order a judicial probe. 

Islamabad, May 25
Pakistan's gangrape victim and women rights activist Mukhtaran Mai has resigned as chairperson of a crisis centre established by her after accusing the authorities of adopting an indifferent attitude towards it.

The government has accepted her resignation and the ruling PML-Q local activist Umme Kulsoom Zia has been appointed as the new chairperson.

Mai, who was gangraped and paraded naked in 2003, and fought back despite being an illiterate rural woman vowed to build her own crisis centre, besides many girls schools in Alipur and Jatoi tehsils, with the help of the World Bank and other international organisations.

She said the Meerwala Women's Crisis Centre was functioning in a five-room building where 13 victims of domestic violence had been housed.

Mai had built the centre without government help. — PTI