Finally, India and the US have a bilateral document on the N-deal other than the joint statement of July 18, 2005. The landmark agreement is an important milestone towards implementing the nuclear deal and it draws hope that it will stand the test of time.

Two years might seem like a long time to reach an agreement. But so complex is the deal that few realise it is, perhaps, the shortest ever timeframe in which an agreement under Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act has been concluded. Ask the Chinese, who started negotiating one with Reagan’s administration and saw it operationalised only under Clinton’s.

On July 21 when the principal negotiators accepted the final version of the agreement, they accomplished a task that continues to bewilder several countries around the globe. Indian diplomats will relate the surprise with which their foreign counterparts ask how India managed to get this good a deal.

That surprise stems from the fact that no deal in recent history has questioned one of the pillars of the current international order — the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Nor has India negotiatied a pact where a key tenet of the international order has had to be altered in its favour. This is what sets the N-deal and the just concluded 123 agreement apart.

Also, the negotiations generated unprecedented public debate across the intellectual and political spectrum. Added to this was the sheer complexity of the agreement because of its technical nature. This made for devils creeping into the detail and led others to see such devils where, many a time, none existed.

... contd.