Indo-US N-deal lurches ahead another step

Washington: The landmark Indo-US nuclear deal, initiated by former president George W Bush, took a small step forward towards full implementation with the current Democratic dispensation under president Barack Obama certifying on Wednesday that India had placed safeguards on its nuclear facilities.

File photo: Indian Embassy, Washington DC

Through a memorandum, Obama confirmed that India has formally agreed to provide access to the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), of its civilian nuclear reactors.

The transformative deal was agreed upon and brought into existence by Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh and former US president George W Bush in 2008. It essentially allowed New Delhi to be relieved of sanctions in nuclear trade with governments and international entities and participate fully in civilian nuclear energy markets inspite of being a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Not only did the deal allow India to beat a decades-old sanctions regime but in turn gifted a beleaguered US regime a valuable and influential ally in a vitally important and politically inflamed region. It was widely regarded as the only genuine foreign policy success that the Republican administration's two terms under president George Bush could possibly boast of.

The agreement, so close to fruition then, has been sleep-walking its way through the current dispensation as a new flock of NPT- zealots secure important sinecures within the administration.

India's list of nuclear reactors provided to the IAEA is a voluntary action and does not include military facilities.