Indian and US officials worked to hammer out the contentious details of a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation pact, a deal touted as the cornerstone of an emerging US-India alliance -- but one proving to be anything but.
Both sides had hoped to finalize the deal before US President George W. Bush visits India next week. Instead, problems concluding the agreement are exposing deep differences in how each side perceives India's role in the world's nuclear community.
US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns met for a second day on Friday with his Indian counterpart, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, to discuss the deal, which was signed in July and faces approval by a skeptical US Congress.
Following the talks, India's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that "there was greater clarity on the issues under discussion," and that "progress has been made."
Burns told reporters that there were issues the two countries have to resolve and that might take some time. He didn't elaborate.
"The two governments are trying very hard to see our way through to the finish line. The deal hasn't been accomplished yet," he said.
Indian and US officials have in recent days expressed doubts about completing the deal before Bush arrives on Wednesday.
Even Bush appears to have given up on that goal -- he said that he now hopes to finalize the deal while in India.
But once completed, he said the deal would help create an international nuclear community where supplier nations, such as the US, provide nuclear fuel to countries "developing civilian nuclear energy programs," like India.
The supplier nations would then handle the reprocessing of spent fuel, he said in a speech on Wednesday to the Asia Society in Washington. Reprocessing can be used to make weapons-grade nuclear material.
But India has nuclear weapons, and has long been able to reprocess its own spent fuel -- in fact, reprocessing is key to its tightly entwined civilian and military atomic programs. India's nuclear establishment also does not consider the country a developing atomic power, even if its nuclear program is modest in size.
"We have had the ability to reprocess since 1965, but Bush is proposing that our right to do so be taken away," said M.R. Srinivasan, a member of the Indian government's Atomic Energy Commission, which has played a support role in the talks on the nuclear pact.
"That is not acceptable, we are not a `developing' nuclear nation," he said.
The pact marks a major policy shift for the US, which imposed sanctions on India in 1998 after it conducted nuclear tests. The restrictions have since been lifted.
Apart from being hailed as a symbol of the growing ties between India and the US, the deal is also considered to be part of a broader effort by Washington and New Delhi to balance China's growing economic and political influence in Asia.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS