Washington, July 08: John McCain and Barak Obama,
presumptive Republican and Democratic presidential nominees,
may have previously backed the nuclear deal with India but the
new US President may link its full implementation to Indian
acceptance of CTBT, which Bush administration has staunchly
opposed, a former senior American diplomat says.
"Both (McCain and Obama) supported the Bush-Singh deal.
However, it is unclear whether either, as President, would
simply endorse and implement it in its present form," says
Strobe Talbott, former President Bill Clinton's special envoy
for the US-Indian dialogue of 1998-2000.
"The winner of the election might, in some fashion, link
full implementation of the deal to Indian acceptance of
the comprehensive test ban treaty, which the Bush
administration has staunchly opposed," Talbott says.
Painting a rosy picture of Indo-US ties as a
"relationship that is on an upward trajectory," the former US
Deputy Secretary of State, however, says the nuclear deal is
"fatally wounded" and goes on to add that US officials remain
sceptical about the deal.
"They fear the pact is a fatally wounded victim of
Indian internal politics subject, perhaps, to resurrection
next year, when there will be a new leader on the US side
and might be one on the Indian side as well. In that case,
McCain or Obama would inherit a tricky and consequential piece
of unfinished business," Talbott, now president of the
Washington-based Brookings Institution, a prominent
think-tank, said in a latest article on Indo-US relations.
Obama, the 47-year-old first-time senator from Illinois,
has been forward-leaning with regard to US ratification of the
CTBT, Talbott noted.
At the same time, McCain, the 72-year-old Vietnam war
veteran who voted against the treaty's ratification in 1998,
has said he might reconsider his position, since he has an
overall posture that is much more favourable toward the
nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) than Bush's.
"Given India's longstanding neuralgia with regard to the
CTBT (exceeded only by its even deeper antipathy to the NPT),
a US President who moved back toward the CTBT would have a
delicate and difficult time with his Indian counterpart
on the terms of bilateral nuclear cooperation," Talbott says.
"Thus whatever the status of the US-Indian civil nuclear
deal early next year both nations' leaders still have their
work cut out for them in cooperating to stop, and then
reverse, the unravelling of the international nuclear
non-proliferation regime."
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, July 08, 2008, 00:00