WASHINGTON: The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is divided over extending support to the Bush administration's civilian nuclear deal with India.
"I haven't counted the numbers, but it's a big group of countries that have expressed concerns, (about lending support to the deal),'' the Chairman of the US-backed, 45-nation NSG Ambassador Roald Naess of Norway, today said in an interview
The NSG reaches decisions by consensus after informal discussions, Naess, a former American diplomat, said and added "My guess is that this issue is not ripe for a decision''.
Legislation to endorse the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal is pending before the US Congress. The deal would lift a 30-year ban and allow India access to the United States' sensitive nuclear technology and reactors in exchange for which India has agreed to bring its civil reactors under international safeguards on a permanent basis.
The Bush Administration had assured India that it would seek to exempt New Delhi from the NSG's export controls, which bar sales of nuclear fuel and technology to countries that haven't signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
A lack of consensus in the NSG may delay completion of the agreement for several months according to Charles Ferguson, a former State Department nuclear safety official, who's now at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, the news report said.
The report added that the US negotiators are no longer hopeful the issue may be resolved when NSG members meet in Rio de Janeiro next month.
One possible US strategy now may be to seek congressional action to allow the India agreement to go forward and then ask the NSG to convene a special meeting, the report said quoting an unnamed the Bush administration official.
However, Ferguson said US lawmakers instead may want to wait for the NSG to act before deciding whether to change anti- proliferation law.
