NEW DELHI, July 18: Barely two months after India went nuclear, officials from New Delhi and Washington will roll up their sleeves and get down on Monday to the business of dealing -- and saving face -- on what is intended to be a grand, bilateral bargain.The US team, led by Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, begins the New Delhi leg of its India-Pakistan tour when it arrives in the capital on a US government aircraft tomorrow. It leaves for Islamabad Tuesday afternoon.
Talbott brings with him Robert Einhorn, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Non-Proliferation in the State department; Bruce Riedel, senior advisor in the National Security Council; J. Ralston, vice-chief of the Joint Chief of Staff; Karl F. Inderfurth, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia and Matthew Daley, a career diplomat.
As the world's sixth de facto nuclear power, India will watch with some trepidation as its own team, led by the Prime Minister's key aide Jaswant Singh, along with foreign secretary K. Raghunath andofficials from the Ministry of External Affairs and Defence, engages in negotiations with the world's remaining superpower.
The talks take place in the background of Pakistan's stunning decision to sue the US for the 28 F-16 fighter aircraft it paid for a decade ago but never received, as well as Islamabad's outright rejection today of a bilateral "no first-use strike" offer by India.
It was important for Pakistan to keep a "credible deterrence" against India's conventional military superiority, foreign office spokesman Tariq Altaf said in Islamabad, dubbing New Delhi's proposal a "clever" one.
Meanwhile in Washington, Democrat Frank Pallone moved on Thursday anidentical legislation in the Congress, seeking a one-year Presidential waiver for trade sanctions against India and Pakistan.
The stakes in Monday morning's talks here are enormous, but both sides are genuinely keen to get over the anger and recrimination that put the relationship into a hole soon after Pokharan. In fact, if atmospherics coulddetermine the content of the talks, Talbott and Singh are believed to have already forged a rare bond of understanding that could rub off on their respective power centres.
Interestingly, the character of the Indo-US discussions differs widely from the US-Pakistani one, even if they revolve around a signature on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). While Islamabad is desperate for money to bolster its economy in real danger of a default, it has made clear it has "no rigid position" on the signature.
New Delhi, on the other hand, is unlikely to settle only for the waiver of economic sanctions. What it really wants is access to high technology, especially in the civilian nuclear power sector, which it has been denied since it exploded its first nuclear device 24 years ago.
Ironically, the ground for reviving the Indo-US "strategic dialogue" has never been better. With enough nuclear data in its bag after the May 11-13 tests, India seems to have intellectually resolved its CTBT inhibitions. Thesetalks, following up from the round in Frankfurt ten days ago, will extend the elbow room for leverages for both sides.
Both sides will start reasonably early at 9 am on Monday morning, and break for lunch to be hosted by Minister of State for External Affairs Vasundhara Raje. Talks will be held with Prime Minister A B Vajpayee on Monday evening, unusual in the fact that it will go beyond the predictable courtesy call. Singh will host dinner in the evening.
Jaswant emerging as PM's Man Friday
The post-Pokharan phase of Indian diplomacy has altered power equations in the BJP-led Government with Jaswant Singh emerging as Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's right-hand man. Over the past few weeks, Singh has steadily overtaken the PM's principal secretary, Brajesh Mishra, in setting the tone and tenor of the Government's foreign policy initiatives on the nuclear question and its attendant issues. Today, Singh is not merely carrying out instructions in his delicate negotiations with US DeputySecretary Strobe Talbott. He is actually framing India's position for the talks. He has also taken over supervision of the ongoing negotiations with France and Russia on arms control, disarmament and other nuclear-related matters after Mishra failed to make a breakthrough in his visits to these countries. According to Foreign Office sources, the Indian officials involved in the discussions take their briefing from Singh directly.Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
