New Delhi
26 March 2008
Absence of a consensus within the country has put the India-United
States nuclear deal on hold for the present, National Security Adviser MK Narayanan
said.
He said a "national consensus across the board" was required on issues like whether
China is "a threat or is China a neighbour that we can go along with" and what would be
the optimum terms of boundary settlement with China.
According to him, a consensus was also needed on whether India's cooperation with
Pakistan can be "enlarged", and whether India's humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan
is enough or can India "do more".
Delivering the late Air Chief Marshal PC Lal 25th Memorial Lecture here on Wednesday,
Mr Narayanan said, "Absence of a consensus within the country has been a major
handicap. It has put matters on hold for the present but this would need a resolution
earlier rather than later."
In his lecture on "Managing India's national security and building a consensus for the
21st century", he suggested that the nuclear deal was important for India's energy
security and for sustaining and propelling high economic growth.
"India seeks to enlarge its energy mix by stepping up nuclear power generation. The
world as a whole is beginning to see a nuclear power renaissance and India is anxious
to become a part of the nuclear mainstream," he said.
He explained that India's efforts to break out of its current isolation led to the ongoing
negotiations with the US on a nuclear deal but India cannot achieve full nuclear
cooperation even with countries like Russia or France till the 123 Agreement with the US,
a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and a waiver
from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) are carried out.
Dwelling on the opposition to the nuclear deal from the non-proliferation lobby, Mr
Narayanan said the nonproliferation argument that the India-US civil nuclear cooperation
agreement would exacerbate the nuclear standoff in South Asia "is as misleading as it is
mischievous."
"The deal has nothing to do with India's strategic nuclear weapons programme," he
asserted. "The reality is the civil nuclear cooperation agreement is intended for the sole
purpose of enlarging India's opportunities for nuclear commerce and ensuring
assistance of enlarged nuclear power generation programme."
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