N-deal: India must change its mindset, says Burns

United States Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, who is obviously mindful that he had to put off his trip to New Delhi this week to seal the 123 Agreement because of opposition from India's Atomic Energy Commission led by Anil Kakodkar, was not above taking a mild dig at this particular establishment, calling on them to shrug off the hangover of the past and think to the future.

Informed of the concerns of Kakodkar and his colleagues that once again had stalled the completion of the agreement, the chief US interlocutor of the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement said, "I think an adjustment needs to be made, perhaps psychologically, from a time when India was completely isolated in developing its own nuclear potential to a time now with the Hyde Act and the Nuclear Suppliers Group will provide for India."

"And, that is a time when India can be engaged with the rest of the world, where India could be delivered from this nuclear isolation, where India could be treated respectfully and where there could be two-way trade in the nuclear field-certainly in terms of nuclear fuel and nuclear technology," he said during a question and answer session that followed his keynote address to the Heritage Foundation-sponsored conference on US-India Relations: The Road Ahead.

Burns' comment that India needs to make this psychological change in mindset, followed his acknowledgment, "I have great respect for the Department of Atomic Energy officials who played such an important role in the development of the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement and I know many of them well and I worked with them."

The senior administration official said, "People on both sides of the equation in India and in the Department of Atomic Energy as well as my own government and other governments, need to adjust to this new world -- that means compromise, it means understanding that maybe what you did in isolation will not be the same as what you would do in a more integrated world, where India is working with the rest of the international community to provide for civilian nuclear power."

"Maybe, some of the problems we have had in working out the final small details in this agreement, you are seeing the intersection of a prior world of isolation with this future world of integration, and I would hope that there would be an open mind on the part of everyone in the Indian government as well as our own government, to see that we make this transition together," Burns opined.

"That does mean compromise and it does mean that if India wants the benefits of civil nuclear trade with the United States of France or Russia, it is going to need to subject itself to inspections by the IAEA-that's what the safeguards agreement is all about," he added.

This necessarily meant that 'civilian nuclear scientists in India will not be working alone anymore. They will be working in concert with others around the world. So I think you are going to see us make this leap, Burns said.

"You are seeing some of the difficulties on both sides in getting there, but I am confident we can do it and I will go to India-when I do go-with a great deal of confidence that this is the right agreement for us," he added.

But Burns emphasized the importance of the need to 'make a final push to cement it, and when we do that, it will be one of the great achievements in the US-India relationship going back to 1947.'