Stage set for NSG meet in Vienna

21 August 2008

Vienna: A two-day meeting of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), beginning Thursday, will see the United States and India try and convince the body to agree on a landmark nuclear deal designed to bring India out of nuclear isolation and into the mainstream of nuclear trade and commerce. The NSG is the governing body for international nuclear commerce.

The two nations recently succeeded in getting the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a United Nations nuclear watchdog body, to approve key safeguards for the agreement.

In essence the US will ask the NSG members to grant an exemption for India to receive atomic fuel and technology, even though it is not part of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The body must unanimously approve the exemptions before the deal transits the Atlantic and appears before the US Congress for final consideration and approval
The Germany-chaired NSG meeting is the penultimate step in the approvals process. 

"We are hoping to get as wide an approval as possible so that we can move on with regard to having this agreement for Congress to look at, but I don't want to get ahead of the suppliers group meeting," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said when asked if Washington was confident of unanimous NSG approval. "That's our hope," he said.

The NSG, which governs trade in nuclear materials and processes, operates by consensus, a procedure which allows any of its 45 member nations to block, or significantly amend, any agreement if they so desire.

Though the deal has received widespread support amongst NSG member nations it has its share of the uncommitted or those opposed. These have included countries such as Canada, Japan and Australia. But as efforts have intensified since the IAEA meeting last month to win over opposition, these countries have signalled that they may not block the deal even though they may refrain from extending whole- hearted support.