The "gaps" in finalisation of the civil nuclear deal with the US do not pose any major problem, India has said, but cautioned against any interference with its strategic programme as it would "undermine" the agreement.
Amid fresh round of parleys on the 123 Agreement, India's key negotiator S Jai Shankar made it clear that the Indo-US civil nuclear deal is not an arms control agreement or a trade off for New Delhi's strategic programme.
"Basically, I do not think there are many problems in the gaps. The issue is how you take broad political principles and make them into legal language," Jai Shankar, Indian high commissioner to Singapore, said at the Carnegie Endowment Conference International Non-proliferation Conference in Washington.
While translating the March 2006 and the July 2005 understandings into the 123 Agreement, the two sides are working on a legal document with "a worst case contingency approach," said Jai Shankar, former joint secretary (Americas) in the External Affairs Ministry who has been involved in the negotiations since the start.
"You have to find very exacting, very rigorous language to reflect that. And that is where the challenge lies," he said.
Emphasising that India's strategic programme is clearly outside the purview of the Indo-US understanding, Jai Shankar said, "Any attempts to intrude into that domain or determine externally what India regards as its national prerogative would obviously undermine the basis of the agreement."