Second NSG meet is ‘last chance’ for nuclear deal

The Hindu
Sep 2, 2008

NEW DELHI: As members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group slowly digest the revised American proposal to grant India a waiver from the cartel’s export guidelines, Indian officials say this week’s scheduled NSG meeting will be decisive in sealing the fate of the nuclear deal with the United States one way or another. “Both the U.S. and India are down to the wire in this,” one official told The Hindu. “For us in terms of substance, and for the Americans in terms of time.” While declining to provide any details about the draft out of deference to the NSG’s rules of confidentiality, Indian officials say the new text represents a compromise. “A genuine attempt has been made to deal with the concerns raised” the last time the 45-nation suppliers club met in Vienna on August 21-22, said an official. The changes are not cosmetic, as some nonproliferationists have charged, but the overall package is consistent with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assurances to Parliament, the officials insist. However, there is absolutely no room for India to cut any more slack, they say. “In terms of substance, this is it as far as we are concerned.”