NEW DELHI, April 20 — A nuclear accord hailed as the centerpiece of India’s deepening friendship with the United States appears to be in jeopardy, as Indian officials argue about whether its limitations on their nuclear activities offend the country’s sense of sovereignty.
The accord, which was announced by President Bush last year and approved by Congress, is now mired in the swamp of history and complicated politics of nonproliferation. In effect, the negotiations have been unable to resolve a central question: should India be treated as a nuclear weapons state, which retains the right to test its weapons and reprocess spent nuclear fuel?
The issue is proving trickier to sort out than anyone anticipated. The dispute has come up as the two countries have tried to negotiate an accord known as a “123 agreement,” which could prohibit India from conducting further nuclear weapons tests, and put restrictions on whether it can reprocess spent nuclear fuel. The “123” refers to a section of the United States Atomic Energy Act.
The United States fears that the reprocessed fuel could be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium for a new generation of nuclear weapons, undermining Mr. Bush’s argument that the unusual deal with India would aid nonproliferation.
The deal is not necessarily doomed. But the sticking points are so politically contentious that they make it extremely difficult for either President Bush or Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India to break the impasse easily.
American and Indian negotiators conferred this week on the sidelines of a meeting of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group in South Africa. Washington has made it clear that it has already made plenty of concessions to Indian demands, and administration officials have openly stepped up pressure.
Mr. Burns said the Indian foreign secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon, had been invited to Washington for talks early next month, and Mr. Burns planned then to travel to India.
Completion of the deal will determine whether India can buy nuclear fuel and reactors from the United States or anywhere else. Until the 123 agreement is sealed, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a loose organization of countries that sell nuclear equipment and material, will not open the doors to nuclear commerce with India.
The United States-India nuclear pact, announced in March 2006, would allow India access to civilian nuclear technology, overturning a decades-old ban that resulted from India’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. India has possessed nuclear weapons for 30 years, and in 1998 it tested its weapons — a test that Pakistan answered with one of its own.
But India also wants to generate nuclear power to meet its growing energy demand. In exchange for the right to buy reactors and fuel on the world market, it has agreed to allow international inspections of its civilian nuclear facilities, which it has promised to segregate from its military arsenal.
Congress last year gave its initial approval to the administration to allow the sale of nuclear technology to India. The Congressional blessing was advertised in Washington and New Delhi as a signal of India’s growing importance to the United States, and it was the source of intense lobbying in the United States.
The deal was opposed by many groups concerned with nonproliferation, which argued that the Bush administration was setting a bad precedent by agreeing to sell nuclear technology and fuel to a country that for years has declined to join the nonproliferation treaty.
For his part, the Indian prime minister, Mr. Singh, expended considerable political capital on selling the deal here at home, where distrust of American interests prevails, particularly among atomic scientists and the government’s leftist allies.
Some opponents of the deal in Washington say they would be happy to see it collapse because of objections in New Delhi, leaving the Bush administration to argue that it came through with its part of the bargain, winning passage in Congress. Congress would also have to vote on a final agreement on nuclear cooperation.
The deal appears to have been further muddied by an indictment, made public this month, charging officials at a private company, Cirrus, with buying prohibited weapons technology for Indian government agencies.
India’s atomic scientists have been among the most influential critics of the nuclear deal, consistently protesting that it would nip the country’s ability to advance its strategic program, for instance, by carrying out more nuclear tests.
The other important sticking point is the right to reprocess spent fuel, an enterprise that the Americans fear would allow India to generate plutonium for its weapons programs. India says it needs the reprocessed fuel for civilian use alone.
The fuel dispute is as symbolic as it is practical, tinged with historical memory. In 1974, after India’s first nuclear tests, the United States cut off its supply of nuclear fuel for a reactor at Tarapur, in western India.
The logjam is all the more serious for the timing. The longer the negotiations drag on, the closer it gets to both United States elections in 2008 and Indian elections in 2009. There is considerable good will in this country for all things American, but in this deeply nationalistic body politic, anti-American sentiment can also be deployed as a political tool, and Mr. Singh’s government can hardly be seen to be bending too much to American pressure.
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