Indian PM warns against missing nuclear bus

TARAPUR(India)—India cannot afford to lag behind developed nations in nuclear energy, the country’s prime minister said Friday as he battled opposition from communist allies to an atomic deal with the US.
“There is today talk the world over of a nuclear renaissance. We cannot afford to miss the bus or lag behind these global developments,” Manmohan Singh said during a visit to nuclear energy installations near India’s financial capital Mumbai. “India is now too important a country to remain outside the mainstream in nuclear power growth,” he said, adding the country could “double its nuclear power generation target by opening up to international cooperation.”
India’s minority Congress government is in the midst of a major row over the implementation of a nuclear cooperation accord with the United States, with its communist allies vowing to block the deal. The pact is seen as the cornerstone of deeper ties with Washington, and seeks to bring energy-hungry India into the fold of global atomic commerce after a three-decade gap.
Opponents, including the communists who oppose strategic ties with Washington, say the deal threatens India’s sovereignty, notably the continued development of its nuclear weapons programme. But Singh sought to dismiss fears of dependence on the United States, asserting that future nuclear “cooperation will not be dependent on any one country.”
“We will source supplies from many of the countries in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, including the US, Russia, France and Japan,” he said. On Thursday India’s foreign minister said the government would set up a committee to review objections to the deal with the US, and “examine the implications of the nuclear agreement on foreign policy and security cooperation.”
The opposition from the communists raised concerns that India may be headed for mid-term elections if the leftists withdraw their support from the government over the issue. But speaking at Tarapur in Maharashtra state, the site of India’s largest operating nuclear power facility, Singh underlined that nuclear energy was crucial to India sustaining a high economic growth rate.
Official data on Friday showed India’s economy grew by a strong 9.3 percent in the first quarter. The country of 1.1 billion people has the fastest expanding major economy after China. “I have no doubt whatsoever that the sustainability of our long-term economic growth is critically dependent on our ability to meet our energy requirements of the future,” Singh said.
“Our proven resources of coal, oil, gas and hydropower are totally insufficient to meet our requirements ... We do not enjoy the luxury of an either-or choice: India needs energy from all known and likely sources,” he said. The government and its communist allies have stepped back from the brink of a face-off over a nuclear deal with the United States and put a temporary lid on a political crisis, officials and analysts said.
An ambiguous joint statement issued on Thursday announcing the formation of a panel to study the controversial deal and address objections of the left parties, who shore up the coalition, was a much-needed face-saving compromise, they said. With the panel expected to submit its report by the end of September, it will give Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government time to convince communist leaders while pursuing informal talks to secure global approvals the deal still needs.—Agencies
Although some left leaders have publicly claimed victory, privately top leaders said it was a compromise.
“They also saved face, we also saved face,” one top left leader told Reuters on condition of anonymity. “We found a middle path. We also need to continue with our politics.”
The civilian nuclear cooperation deal aims to lift a three-decade ban on sales of U.S. nuclear fuel and reactors to India, imposed after it conducted a nuclear test in 1974, while staying out of non-proliferation agreements.
While the deal has been hailed as historic by Washington and New Delhi, the communists say it compromises India’s sovereignty and imposes American hegemony.
The four left parties, which have 60 MPs in the 545-member lower house of parliament, have threatened the government with “serious consequences” if it did not give in, implying that they could end support and possibly force early elections.
They have asked the government to put on hold talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to secure a safeguards pact needed to clinch the deal while the panel studies it.
The government has rejected the demand but not said so publicly, allowing the communists to claim victory, one senior government official close to the negotiations over the deal, told Reuters.
“We have not been told about any change in the schedule for the rest of the process,” the official said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media.
“Our talks with IAEA have been informal and they will remain so until we are ready with a formal safeguards agreement,” he said. “And that was anyway not expected to be ready until around November. So as of now, we are fine.”
While the latest compromise is expected to save the deal, it was only a temporary remedy to the deep fissures that have opened up between the ruling Congress and the communist parties, almost two years before national elections are due in 2009.
“Even if the present crisis recedes — and there’s no certainty of that — the fault lines it has brought to the surface are unlikely to fade,” the Indian Express newspaper said in an editorial.
“Now that the immediate crisis has been staved off, let both parties think seriously about how they have both become part of the problem,” it said. “Elections are the solution.”