Indian officials show anger toward NZ over nuke treaty

Continuing New Zealand attempts to block a major nuclear treaty between India and the United States are attracting increasingly hostile comments from officials in Delhi.

One newspaper claims Wellington is trying to stop all Indian nuclear testing before it approves a pact between Washington and Delhi.

Last Friday New Zealand diplomats played a major role inside a secretive 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) which has to approve the deal by consensus. New Zealand leads a group of six nations demanding that India sign both the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Nuclear Testing Ban.

India wants a waiver from both.

Last week the NSG failed to reach consensus and will meet again next week in Vienna to try again.

New Zealand has come under heavy US pressure to give a waiver to India with both US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Glyn Davies, personally delivering requests for a waiver.

The daily Hindu newspaper said the New Zealand six issued a statement to the NSG behind closed doors in which they warned that they would move "substantive amendments ... with a view to increasing the level of comfort with the proposed exemption."

New Zealand's group includes Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland.

India Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar said his nation will not be pushed on the deal.
"The NSG exemption should be clean and there should be no additional condition," Kakodkar said.

"They may want to push, but India can't be pushed. Civil nuclear cooperation is important, but that doesn't mean at any cost....

"Should we allow ourselves to be pushed? Are we not Indians? Are you not proud of yourself and what you are doing?" Kakodkar said.
India's ruling Congress Party is demanding the deal go ahead with a clean waiver.
"Nothing which impinges or seem to impinge on India's national interest will be acceptable," party spokesman Manish Tewari said.

The US Ambassador to India, David C Mulford, said yesterday Washington was working with India to get the full waiver.

"The US and India stand shoulder-to-shoulder in their desire for a clean exception and we will continue to work with our Indian partners to persuade the NSG countries that such an exemption is in the international community's best interest," he said.

Mulford said the two nations would "continue our vigorous joint advocacy for the initiative at the highest levels of NSG governments."

The Indian media interpreted Mulford's statement as hinting at direct involvement by President George Bush.

In Auckland on Saturday Glyn Davies told Fairfax Media he delivered a message to the government here asking again for New Zealand support.

"We think it is important to find ways to go forward in a transparent fashion with India as they develop nuclear energy," he said. "We think this is the way to do it.

"Its too important given the size of India's economy, given the size of its nuclear infrastructure, and its aspirations in nuclear generation, we need to find a way to embrace them in bring them into the tent."

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has invested his political future in a treaty with the US in which Washington will supply India with civilian nuclear fuel and technology. He narrowly survived a confidence vote last month in pushing through the deal on his side.

- © Fairfax NZ News