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NEW DELHI, APRIL 14: Driven by a sense of urgency to step up the pace on the nuclear deal, India and US have decided to hold negotiations on the 123 bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement next week in South Africa. These talks will be held on the margins of the Nuclear Suppliers Group plenary meet in Cape Town starting Monday.

The meeting assumes significance given Washington’s visible frustration over the progress made in the last round of negotiations here on March 26-30. Sources told The Sunday Express that both sides will hope to clear a lot of the “technical differences” over the text of the agreement. In fact, a “positive meeting” here could hold the key to whether the nuclear deal can be wrapped up this year itself.

It’s learnt that following high-level meetings in the Prime Minister’s Office last week, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has been asked to schedule talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency on the safeguards agreement soon. India has to show sufficient progress on this front by the time the 123 agreement reaches the US Congress for approval.

While the US is said to have been keen on a higher-level interaction, India felt another meeting between the negotiators would help narrow the gap before things are taken to the next level.

So it was decided to hold a meeting in South Africa as the US negotiator on the 123 Agreement Richard Stratford, who is the Director of Nuclear Energy, Safety and Security in the State Department, would be present there.

The Indian team will be headed by India’s envoy in Singapore S. Jaishankar, who will be leaving tomorrow. He will also use the opportunity to reach out to other NSG members though the n-deal is not, so far, on the NSG’s agenda.

There has been some frenetic diplomacy over the last couple of weeks to get matters moving fast in India — US Ambassador David Mulford has been holding meetings with top PMO officials and the MEA almost on a daily basis.

On the 123 talks, the key area of difference is over the cessation of cooperation if India were to test a nuclear device.

While India is against any explicit commitment on this in the agreement, including a unilateral moratorium on testing, the government will need to take a view on this given the high stakes involved if India planned tests in the future. It is here that the DAE feels US should not place such conditions.

While Washington is likely to accept the Indian position and not mention the term “unilateral moratorium” in the agreement, the fact is that a test will lead to the end of all nuclear cooperation as this is required under the Hyde Act.

As of now, the US language in the agreement is on the lines that in case India were to explode a device, US will act according to its “supreme national interest”.

The other issues of difference:

• Permanent safeguards and assurance on fuel supplies: While DAE is keen to make this appear as a reciprocal arrangement, Washington is not in favour of a direct link in the text as it does not make such offers to other countries with which it has similar cooperation. It’s learnt that this issue may be resolved as “more acceptable language” emerged in the last round of talks.

• Right to reprocess spent fuel and access to reprocessing technology: As of now, the US negotiating team does not have the mandate to make an exception on this issue as it goes against US law.

Sources said this issue will have to be dealt with at a higher political level. In this context, the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W Bush on the margins of the G-8 Summit in June in Germany will be significant.

• Right of Return: In case India were to test, US can exercise this right to take back all items and the fuel it has exported. India feels this runs against fuel assurances. But given the practical difficulty in implementing this, New Delhi is confident that an agreed language can be worked upon.

The working deadline to clean up much of the language on the 123 agreement is May-end so that the agreement can be finalised by June — after the PM meets Bush — so that it can then be placed before the US Congress for an “up and down” vote.