US nuclear deals with North Korea, India in limbo

US nuclear deals with North Korea, India in limbo

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US deals to end North Korea's nuclear weapons drive and to bring India into the loop of global atomic commerce are in a limbo amid doubts they can be wrapped up before President George W. Bush leaves office in a year.

The deal with North Korea under a six-nation agreement had been progressing well last year until Pyongyang failed to meet a December 31 deadline to fully declare its nuclear program and disable its key plutonium reactor.

Washington says it has evidence that Pyongyang has imported material for a suspected uranium enrichment program aside from its plutonium activities.

The elusive North Koreans, on the other hand, have vowed to slow down their nuclear disablement activities.

They claim the United States and the other parties in the deal have failed to meet their commitments, including providing North Korea with energy aid and diplomatic and security guarantees.

The impasse sets back the landmark nuclear accord reached four years after the Bush administration decided to bring a negotiated settlement to the nuclear turmoil in the Korean peninsula with the help of China, Russia, South Korea and Japan.

"The declaration issue really could be a show stopper because how can you proceed with a commitment to eliminate North Korea's nuclear program completely if they haven't been transparent about the whole program," Robert Einhorn, a former US government non-proliferation chief, told AFP.

"In other words, if they are continuing to deny part of it, how can you count on them to eliminate the whole thing? It is something that has to be addressed, you can't work around it, you can't sweep it under the rug," he said.

Even if the North Koreans are able to convince Washington that they have washed their hands of any uranium enrichment program and the deal persists, the hawks within the Bush administration will not take it lying down, said Sharon Squassoni, a former nuclear safeguards expert in the State Department.

The Clinton administration in 2002 scrapped a deal to freeze Pyongyang's nuclear weapons drive after accusing it of pursuing a covert program to produce highly enriched uranium, based on intelligence information.

"The neocons (neo-conservatives) within the administration will now say that we are back to square one, except that North Korea has also now tested a nuclear weapon," Squassoni said.

But chief US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill, who is in the region trying to salvage the deal, called for patience, saying neither the North nor its negotiating partners "want to walk away" from the deal.

The nuclear deal with India is virtually stuck on two fronts -- in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's administration, where communist and other leftist coalition parties are against it, and at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), where New Delhi is struggling to forge critical atomic safeguards.

Bush and Singh agreed more than two years ago that Washington would provide India with nuclear fuel and technology even though the Asian nation has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But India had to place selected nuclear facilities under international safeguards, including inspections, which has to be agreed upon by the IAEA board of directors.

A third round of talks between Indian and IAEA officials ended last week without resolution on India's demands for a mechanism to create a strategic reserve to meet lifetime fuel supply for its civilian nuclear plants, as well as "corrective measures" in the event of stoppage of fuel to power plants, experts said.

Even if IAEA agreed on the safeguards, the Nuclear Suppliers' Group, another regulatory body which also operates by consensus, has to agree to a US proposal to exempt India from a "full scope safeguards" condition of nuclear supply.

Then, an operational agreement for the nuclear deal that has already been adopted by India and the United States as well as the IAEA safeguards has to be approved by the US Congress before summer for it to be implemented by year end, experts said.

The deadline stems from a tight 2008 legislative calendar ahead of the November US presidential elections.

"There will be a very, very significant push to complete it this year but it is going to be tough. Even if everything works perfectly, it is still going to be tough," Squassoni said.

Although the US Congress has agreed in principle to the Indian nuclear deal, Einhorn said that there could be a delay and some controversial issues associated with it.

"There will be some members of Congress who will say this should be dealt by the next president and the next Congress," he said.

"At the end of the day, the votes are probably there but it's not going to breeze through Congress."
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