At a meeting at the US think tank, the Brookings Institution, a day before the adoption by the IAEA Board of Governors of the recommendation of the director general to approve the India-specific safeguards agreement, Robert Einhorn, a former US official dealing with non-proliferation and a nuclear absolutist, said that he was confident that “if the Nuclear Suppliers Group makes a decision by secret ballot, the proposal for a special exemption (for India) will fail”. However, he added, somewhat ruefully, since there would be no secret ballot, the decision was likely to “favour India because a vast majority of NSG members will not want to disappoint India or the US”.

Reactions from the Vienna IAEA meeting were mixed: some saw the approval as an endorsement of the agreement itself, others have highlighted the “concerns” voiced by a large number of states during the debate as indicative of opposition — to the agreement and to India. Notwithstanding Einhorn’s prediction, there is no doubt that those “concerns” will become much more sharply focused in the NSG. India has asked the United States to push for a “clean and unconditional” waiver for India from the restrictions placed by the NSG on international nuclear commerce; the US appears now to be making a distinction between a “clean” waiver and an “unconditional” one.

Before turning to likely “conditions” that may become the focus of debate in the NSG, it may be necessary to revisit the origins of the NSG to understand why the discussions there may be different from the ones in the IAEA.

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