‘India’s N-deal will have implications’

Washington: The exception made to India by the US under the civil nuclear deal will have "implications" at international level and China appears to be ready to question the country-specific nature of the agreement, former US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott has said.

The civil nuclear deal does not mean that it is the end of the debate on the nuclear issue; Talbott said at a session at School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University in Washington on Wednesday, which was attended by former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh.

He said he did not doubt India's proliferation credentials but had issues with regard to "implications" of the agreement.

"To call this a deal would be to give the Bush administration the benefit of doubt, to suggest that the Bush administration got something out of the deal," said Talbott who served under the Bill Clinton regime.

His comments came over a month after he attacked the Bush administration for agreeing to the nuclear deal in the present form, saying it amounted to giving "cost-free exception to the strictures of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)".

Talbott had said that his concerns were not that "India will be an irresponsible custodian of nuclear weapons" but that other countries, using India's case, would demand the same.

At the session on Wednesday, he said the deal was being seen as an India-specific "exception by some important players, including China".

Having visited Beijing recently, Talbott said: "I got the distinct impression that the Chinese are reserving the right under the NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group) to weigh the question of whether this should be a country-specific arrangement or whether there should be some either general or specific language attached to the NSG's approval of it that would permit China to look at for its client Pakistan."

He said this is "just one more dimension in which this thing is going to go on and on and on with ups and downs both in Washington DC and Delhi among the people who are following this closely."

The Chinese are picking their words "very, very carefully", Talbott said.