With Austria and Ireland still holding out and the Chinese delegation threatening to leave for Beijing, tough negotiations were on late into the night at the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group in Vienna to forge a consensus to end India’s three and a half decades of nuclear isolation.

A new NSG draft was in the works and had been sent to Washington for clearance although India made it clear that there was almost no scope to revise the draft in substantive terms.

The Chinese, sources said, objected to what they called was the manner in which matters were being pushed on an issue they said involved the future of the global non-proliferation regime.

Well aware of the stakes in the Indo-US nuclear deal — and the tight Congressional calendar ahead — the “highest levels” in Washington got in touch with their counterparts in Beijing to get China to stay on by including it in the consultative process.

China, which until yesterday was in the background trying to play arbitrator of sorts by suggesting to hold another meeting, seemed to suddenly reveal its hand in the most unexpected manner.

This happened even as US was in consultations with holdout countries like Austria, Ireland and New Zealand on the one hand and India on the other, to work out a resolution.

Among the suggestions from some countries to break the deadlock was to place a provision banning transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technology. India has so far maintained it cannot accept a restriction not existing in current NSG guidelines.

... contd.