NEW DELHI: As India’s coalition government tries to complete the controversial nuclear cooperation deal with the United States, it finds itself caught between domestic opposition to the agreement from its left-wing allies and pressure from Washington to seal the deal.

For the agreement to be completed, it needs to be approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and must receive unconditional exemption from the rules for nuclear commerce set by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG), before it is put up for ratification by the US Congress.

At stake is the survival of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, which needs the support of the left for a parliamentary majority.

After a second round of talks between the UPA and the Left in a 15-member committee two days ago, the two sides seem no closer to reconciling their differences on the deal.

India’s left parties oppose the deal because they see it as it a way of bringing India into the US strategic orbit and of compromising decision-making on foreign policy, security and nuclear matters. They also have reservations about the economic viability of nuclear electricity, which the deal seeks to promote in a big way.

Other critics of the deal stress that it will weaken the global non-proliferation norm, and help India build up its nuclear weapons arsenal, and hence trigger a dangerous nuclear arms race in the subcontinent and Asia as a whole.

Meanwhile, the US is setting the timetable for the negotiations process at the IAEA and the NSG.

Washington has told India that it wants to formally present the deal for approval at the NSG’s meeting in South Africa on Nov 11. This means that India will have to negotiate a special inspections (safeguards) agreement with the IAEA well before that.

“This only leaves a narrow window of opportunity for pushing the deal quickly through Congress,” says M.V. Ramana, an independent nuclear affairs analyst at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development, Bangalore.

“Clearly, the Bush administration feels that it can use the deal before the next Presidential election in favour of the Republican Party by touting it as a major foreign policy achievement —in contrast to Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s why it seems to be in a hurry to speed up the negotiations process.”

A speeded-up negotiation process with the IAEA and the NSG is likely to queer the pitch of the UPA-Left talks and might lead to their collapse.

Earlier this week, the Communist Party of India (CPI) warned that if the government holds talks with the IAEA on a safeguards agreement at its general conference meeting in Vienna, it would regard it as a “breach of trust”.

“Securing exceptional exemptions for India from the NSG might prove even more difficult,” argues Achin Vanaik, professor of international relations and global politics at the University of Delhi. “Several members of the Group have reservations about making a special, indeed unique, exception for India because that will damage the global non-proliferation regime. Some, such as New Zealand, Ireland and the Nordic states, have expressed their opposition.”

“Even countries like Germany, the Netherlands and Japan seem inclined not to grant an unconditional exemption to India. It is hard to tell if combined lobbying by India, the US and other supporters of the deal like Britain, France and Russia will bring the fence-sitters on board. And what position China will adopt remains the greatest unknown,” Vanaik added.—Dawn/IPS News Service