I News India - Empowering Ideas!

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has nodded the safeguards agreement with India on Friday making a way clear for the operation of the crucial Indo-US nuke deal. Passed by the 35-nation IAEA board unanimously, India will now proceed to the 45 member Nuclear Suppliers Group for a nod to allowing trade with a non-NPT country, followed by ratification from the US Congress, to finalize the deal.

Earlier in the day, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei had given a positive response by endorsing the India-specific safeguards agreement and asserted that it conformed to “all legal requirements” of his agency.

IAEA expects to start implementing the agreement by next year. The chief told that a total of 14 Indian nuclear reactors will come under Agency safeguards by 2014, six reactors being already under IAEA supervision.

The India-specific safeguards agreement could also be used for the conclusion of other 66-type safeguards agreements, said the chief.

Tags: Atomic Energy, IAEA, India, India USA, Indo US, NPT, Nuke Deal, US, US Congress

The very crucial Indo-US deal conflicts are still unresolved. While opposing the deal, on Friday, top Left leaders threatened the government not to sign the safeguard agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, otherwise they will pull out their hands for the government.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee discussed the issue with the Left party leaders after which Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Prakash Karat said, “We have asked the government not to precede further on the IAEA safeguards agreement.”

“I explained to him (Mukherjee) the Left parties’ stand adopted at our meeting,” the CPI-M leader added.

Earlier, a senior CPI-M leader made a clear statement that “if the government takes the next step, we will break with them.”

Karat expressed the hope that the government will last its full term and that “we are trying to make serious efforts (in this regard).”

Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar, whose party is a key constituent of the UPA, met Karat on Friday morning in an attempt to defuse the situation.

He later said the government should listen to what the Left parties are saying and address their “concerns” while deciding on the nuclear deal.

Tags: Atomic Energy, India, Nuclear deal, Nuke Deal, Prakash Karat, Pranab Mukherjee, US

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee met United States President George W Bush on Monday to hold a talk on civil nuclear deal and other related issues. It was Mukherjee’s first visit to Washington as the External Affairs Minister.

The meeting went smoothly at the Oval Office at White House and both the leaders discussed the prime issues on N-deal at afternoon and last for around 35-minutes.

Ambassador of India Ronen Sen, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, Deputy Chief of the Indian Mission Raminder Singh Jassal and the Joint Secretary (Americas) of the Ministry of External Affairs Gayatri Kumar were also present in the meeting. Present with Bush were his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and his National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley.

All the details are not disclosed about the meeting but Bush and Mukherjee are said to have discussed the width and depth of the United States-India relations that included the civilian nuclear initiative.

“You will know tomorrow from the minister” was all that a senior official would say when asked about the details of the Mukherjee-Bush meeting.

Earlier to this crucial meeting, Rice and Mukherjee also met on Monday at Foggy Bottom earlier in the morning. It was told that meeting was basically confined to regional issues of interest to the two sides and that a lot more was slated to be discussed in the evening, including the civilian nuclear initiative.

“We will continue to work on that agreement,” Rice said after meeting Mukherjee.

“The Indians are now in a process of working with the International Atomic Energy Agency and we will follow that progress and we will have further discussions on that matter,” she added.

Tags: Atomic Energy, Bush, External Affiars, India, Misiter, N-deal, Nuclear deal, Pranab Mukherjee, Shivshankar Menon, US

India will have an important discussion regarding next round of Nuclear Safeguard agreement with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna on Monday. This is a necessary condition for India-America nuclear deal. Indian group reached Vienna on Sunday to talk about the matter under supervision of R.B. Grover, a senior member of Department of Atomic Energy. This conversation between India and IAEA is expected to continue till the end of this month.

Indian debaters and IAEA team will keep informing about the progress of their discussion to the board of Governors of IAEA which will ease the formal presentation of the issue to the board. But it is not known whether the issue will be presented in the foregoing meeting of the board on 3rd march.

There had been four conversations in Vienna between India and IAEA since November last year. Instead of this, there were many informal discussions between both the parties. The motive of this conversation was to draft the safeguard agreement for India. Recently America asked India to finish the debate with IAEA and Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) forcing to take action regarding the start nuclear deal. If unable to do so, India will not be able to get similar deal. Though India refused this statement of America saying that it is a crucial matter and will take time.

Anil Kakodkar, Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission, said that we should complete it as soon as possible, but it will go through a long process because it should be completed in a proper way and it is necessary to fulfill all the needs. It includes many steps and we have to take action step by step. If the Safeguard agreement is not prepared in this week, than India will have to wait for next board meeting going to be held in June. This will mean that India will be unable to complete the deadline of May put by America.

According to M.R. Srinivasan, member of Atomic Energy Commission, Safeguard agreement is important for India. Once the draft for this agreement is ready, it will be inspected and will be presented to political committee of UPA-left for their permission.

Tags: America, Atomic Energy, IAEA, India, Nuclear deal