N-deal: team on way to Vienna for Round II

Head of DAE’s strategic planning division R B Grover will be heading the Indian side in the technical talks though DAE chief Anil Kakodkar continues to keep his options open. Grover reached Delhi this morning for talks with top officials in South Block and is slated to catch the flight for Vienna tonight.

While India is encouraged that IAEA is open to starting talks on India’s proposals, sources said, a clearer picture will emerge later as the IAEA has indicated that issues like fuel supplies assurances have not been included in any other safeguards agreement.

Given that IAEA is not a supplier of fuel, many technical experts in Vienna feel the Agency must not be part of any such commitment. But with plans afoot to build a consensus around IAEA being made custodian of a fuel bank for safety reasons, there is also a view that sooner or later the Agency will have to deal with the issue.

The more tricky aspect for India is to obtain the right for setting up a strategic fuel reserve. IAEA’s stated principle is to allow storage of fuel for reasonable operating requirements of a reactor while India wants to store fuel for the entire lifetime of its reactors. However, with the US having agreed to this in the Separation Plan, India would back its chances in the talks.

This apart, the agreement with IAEA will take note that safeguards will apply on only the 14 reactors identified for civilian purposes and it would have no say on nuclear activity related to the weapons programme. This, in effect, would be a unique affair for IAEA which applies safeguards on all reactors in countries with which it has such an agreement barring the five nuclear weapon states.

India, however, will push to extract the maximum in the agreement as this will have to be placed before the UPA-Left committee on the nuclear deal. Only when the committee gives its nod will New Delhi officially confirm the agreement to IAEA.