July 9: PM, Bush to fast-forward

At this meeting, which will be held before the breakfast interaction between the G8 and the five Outreach countries, both sides will look towards “telescoping” the timeframe for the IAEA and NSG processes.

Besides conveying India’s intent to proceed with the IAEA safeguards agreement, Singh and Bush will discuss the broad roadmap and provide the all-important “political thrust” to conclude the remaining steps before the new administration takes charge in Washington.

While there are several uncertainties to fixing a specific timeline, sources said, the immediate objective is to obtain an exemption from the Nuclear Suppliers Group by early September so that the matter can be listed with the US Congress soon after.

In effect, the India-specific safeguards agreement will be available to all 45 countries of the NSG as they are also IAEA members. Within a week, the US could circulate an agenda calling for a special NSG meeting sometime in early September. Along with it, the draft of a “clean” exemption containing no reference to nuclear testing could also be circulated.

As a result, the 45 days that these NSG countries have often indicated as a minimum requirement can start within days of India confirming the safeguards agreement to IAEA. The key issue for NSG members has been that many of them have stringent domestic laws on non-proliferation and any such exemption would have to be debated internally.

With the IAEA agreement and the draft of the NSG exemption in hand, these countries can start their internal processes. While this is the tricky bit for the nuclear deal, India and US will...