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PrintOctober 19, 2007
India's ruling party says nuclear deal still on
It may be too early to pronounce the strategically important Indo-US nuclear deal as kaput. AFP, via Yahoo News reported that India's ruling Congress Party says the deal is still on despite staunch opposition from a coalition of Communists and Hindu Nationalists.
The Press Trust of India quoted Congress spokesman Shakeel Ahmed as saying,
"The deal is not in cold storage and is very much in the offing. It is not correct to say that the deal has been put on hold or put on the back-burner."
Under the agreement, the US and other countries would provide India with fissile material and reactor technology, while India must put civilian nuclear facilities under international safeguards, including inspections. But the arrangement is also critical to satisfy India's rising energy needs in order to isolate Iran and stymie Putin's bid for influence in South Asia.
It also appears that France, under the leadership of Sarkozy, is also stepping up to the plate (again) by enthusiastically restarting nuclear cooperation with India. French Ambassador to India Jerome Bonnafont, said that France is ready embark on a wide scale nuclear cooperation deal with India and is,
...eager to conclude a bilateral agreement as soon as possible...
Profit is not the only motivation for France to push the nuclear cooperation treaty. Sarkozy knows full well the geo-political implications if the agreement falls through, and the significant economic stakes involved in the War on Terror. In early September, he pushed the consolidation of France's state-owned energy giant and a private utility in order to effectively counter Russia's Gazprom, which has in the past cut off gas supplies to former Warsaw Pact nations in Eastern Europe and former Soviet Republics in Eurasia. Sarkozy is entering the fight on our side in a big way, so his support of the Indo-US treaty is not entirely surprising.
We don't know the final outcome of the political maneuver to seal the deal with India. But it is obvious who our friends and enemies are, both overseas and in the US.
