The US, as the originator of the proposal, agreed to take into account the various concerns voiced at that meeting in a revised draft and the NSG agreed to meet again to consider a fresh draft. With a tacit approval from India, that draft is now being considered by the NSG. The non-proliferation lobby, disconcerted that the proposal was not rejected outright, mounted a last-ditch attack, using the not-inconsiderable resources at their disposal, by prevailing on the current chairman of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, a known opponent of the Indo-US Agreement, to release to the public what was apparently privileged information, in the form of the administration’s answers to 45 fairly technical and non-proliferation related questions.

This ill-advised action, by its very timing, a day before the NSG was scheduled to reconvene in Vienna, had clear mischievous intent and was meant to influence the doubters and fence-sitters in the NSG to propose amendments to the US draft that would certainly kill the deal, and embarrass the US delegation in the process. It seems however, to have achieved other, perhaps unwanted results — the revival of the domestic opposition in India and provoking Indian doubts of America’s bona fides. An examination of the letter and its enclosure would seem to indicate that a storm in a teacup is being interpreted as a tsunami — to quote a feverish TV channel, “a nuclear shock”.

Firstly, Indian newspapers had, several months ago, reported not only the fact of the US state department responding to a series of questions from the House committee, but also that the correspondence was being kept from the public domain since some of the language might have been found embarrassing by the Indian government. So why the surprise? On the substantive side, there does not appear to be anything new in the answers provided, whether on testing, on enrichment and reprocessing technology or on dual use items for the ‘design, construction or operation of sensitive nuclear technologies’.

To start with, in an eerie echo of a debate which has taken place in India, a question was posed by the Committee “Does the Administration believe that the nuclear cooperation agreement with India overrides the Hyde Act?” In response, the answer is that “the proposed Agreement is consistent with the legal requirements of both the Hyde Act and the Atomic Energy Act.” There is no direct response to the issue of what overrides which piece of legislation; clearly the last ‘expression of sovereignty of the US will prevail, according to their own Constitution — if the 123 Agreement is approved by the US Congress, that would obviously be the ‘last expression’; till that time, it is the Hyde Act and the Atomic Energy Act, as amended by the Hyde Act.

It is also interesting to note that the administration has repeated the assurance that the agreement is fully consistent with the “legal” requirements of the Hyde Act, not the political or other requirements.

On the issue of nuclear weapon testing: the PM has stated that just as India retains the sovereign right to test, the US retains the sovereign right to react to such action. These two sovereign rights were sought to be reconciled in the language of the 123 Agreement, by instituting a consultative process so that precipitate action is not taken. The problem area, of course is not the issue of testing, but of the continuation of fuel supply to India by the US in that event. Apart from the unlikelihood of India importing fuel from the US, the problem arises in the interpretation of the phrase “disruption of fuel supplies” and the joint convening of a group of friendly countries to “pursue such measures as would restore fuel supply to India”. The US has clearly stated, perhaps for the first time that the “fuel supply assurances are not, however, meant to insulate India against the consequences of a nuclear explosive test or a violation of non-proliferation commitments.” Still, in response to a question on this specific issue, the answer is “ceasing nuclear cooperation with India would be a serious step. The United States would not take such a serious step without careful consideration of the circumstances necessitating such action and the effects and impacts it would entail.”

The two very different points of view have been sought to be brought together in the 123 Agreement itself, though it may hold the seeds of future disagreement between the two parties. If political relations remain good, the likelihood of resolving such problems amicably increase; if political relations deteriorate, and there is no reason why they should, even smaller problems would assume major proportions.

The answers on the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technologies are also not new; the US not only does not export such technologies, but has been trying to get the NSG, at earlier meetings, to agree to ban the export of such technologies to all ‘unentitled’ countries, so far with little success as there were objections from Canada, Brazil and South Africa. In the answers to the Congress, the US administration recognizes that India already possesses both enrichment and reprocessing facilities. Stopping export to India of these technologies would therefore be irrelevant.

Finally, on dual use items for ‘sensitive nuclear technologies’, one assumes that the reference is to possible use of dual use items for military purposes. That this would not be forthcoming has been known and has, I understand, not even been sought.

The shocked reaction of much of our electronic media and the immediate shrill cries of ‘betrayal’ and worse by the opposition parties are unlikely to be reflected in the NSG. After all, the NSG participants are aware of US laws and would not have been edified by this blatant piece of provocation. Yet, the discussions in the NSG continue; we would have to wait to see if the interests of major countries such as the US, France, the UK, Russia and even Germany prevail over those of the ideological inclinations of a few. The letter is unlikely to change the basic trends.

The writer is former ambassador of India to the United Nations in Geneva express@expressindia.com