Notwithstanding Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's call to US President George Bush last week to persuade the White House to give a political push to Congress to resolve the impasse over the bilateral 123 civilian nuclear agreement, the Bush administration has absolutely no intention of seeking any changes to the Hyde Act.
Senior administration sources told rediff.com that albeit optimism that this time around the 123 Agreement can be finally sealed, the administration has been essentially notified by the Congressional protagonists behind the enabling Hyde legislation to facilitate the civilian nuclear deal, unambiguously and unequivocally that "what you see is what you will get."
The sources also said that Congress will entertain no dilution or elimination of some of the provisions with regard to reprocessing and testing that India finds unacceptable even though they are non-binding.
Several lawmakers both in the House and Senate -- including some closely associated in the drafting of the Hyde Act -- and their aides told rediff.com that affecting any changes to the legislation will be well impossible now since so much horse-trading had gone into reaching a consensus on it, particularly with some of the senior-most Democrats to whom non proliferation is an article of faith.
They said that going back to some of these lawmakers who were strongly resistant to the legislation in the first instance was, as one aide put it, "simply a no-brainer."
Consequently, the administration had been informed that if any changes were to be attempted at this juncture, it could lead to the unraveling of the legislation that will then require fresh legislation that will not only be time-consuming but also unlikely to elicit the kind of overwhelming support that it did last year in both Houses.
Administration sources acknowledged that this message 'was loud and clear,' and that it had no intention of seeking any changes 'outside the parameters of the Hyde Act.'
Ashley J Tellis, senior associate the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who is associated in the negotiations of the nuclear deal since its inception, said: "What both Secretary (of State Condoleezza) Rice and Nicholas Burns have testified and publicly said is that whatever agreements that we reach with India, will be within the parameters of the law."
In an exclusive interview to rediff.com, Tellis explained that "this basically meant that any nuclear cooperation agreement with India -- or for that matter with any other country -- must comply with the Atomic Energy Act and all previous modification of that Act, and in India's case, the Hyde Act of 2006."
Tellis also argued that "what is more important, however, is that existing US law already gives the administration enough latitude to reach a satisfactory agreement with India, without the need for requesting Congress for further amendments."
Administration sources acknowledged the fact that National Security Adviser M K Narayanan will sit down for talks with his vis-à-vis Stephen Hadley in the White House on Wednesday, following a full day of talks between Menon and Burns on Tuesday, and give the discussions a kind of high profile, which the US is hoping will help seal the 123 Agreement.
Some administration sources said it was quite possible that President Bush may even do a "drop-by" during these talks between Narayanan and Hadley to give it a imprimatur of how committed he is to this deal and ostensibly to prevail upon India to seal the agreement this time around so that the both sides could move on to the next phase.
The administration's optimism is evidently fueled by the fact that it will be Narayanan who will be leading the team this time that also includes Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "The United States understands the importance of the Agreement to our relationship and the benefits it will bring to both nations. We are confident that with continued hard work, flexibility, and good spirit, we will reach a final agreement."
On May 1, the State Department, following the Menon-Burns talks, put out a statement saying that 'the discussions were positive and the US was encouraged by the extensive progress that had been made.'
'We look forward to resolving the outgoing issues in the weeks ahead," it added, and noted that "in that regard, Under Secretary Burns will visit India in the second half of May to reach a final agreement."
But Burns never made it then and only visited New Delhi the next month, apparently with the assurance that he was coming to sign the deal, but much to his disappointment, after three days of waiting for a final agreement, left in angst with no 'final agreement' in hand and also without addressing a joint press conference with Menon, which had been on the cards.
Diplomatic observers said if the 123 Agreement is finally resolved this week, the simple though symbolic indication of the success of the negotiators could possibly be a joint press conference or joint communiqué by both sides and also an announcement that Rice would visit Delhi sometime in August to sign the agreement with her counterpart External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
However, failure to reach a modus vivendi, diplomatic observers predicted, will be followed by the usual statements that tangible progress was made by both sides and that a deal continued to be on the cards, sans a time-frame.
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