NSG meet extends into third day: Determined US pushes for firm conclusion

06 September 2008

Vienna: A marathon two-day session intended to approve a one-off waiver of NSG rules against nuclear exports to India, a non-signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has extended into the third day, with three countries, New Zealand, Austria and Ireland holding out against the deal, and China providing active outside support.

The talks, meant to last only two days, will now resume on the third day from 11:00am (0900 GMT) on Saturday, September 06, 2008

The deal is intended to lift a 34-year-old embargo on nuclear trade with India and constitutes a major policy initiative by the Bush administration to bring India into the mainstream of nuclear trade and commerce.

With US negotiators in Vienna reaching an impasse with a clutch of six countries, it appears that president George W Bush and secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, both got into the act contacting their counterparts in these nations. This would appear to have had some effect in that three holdout countries, those of the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland finally split ranks with the others.

With a firmly dug-in trio of Austria, New Zealand and Ireland refusing to budge, and egged on in their intransigence by China, US negotiators put on a brave face saying they were "pleased with the significant progress … made throughout the day."

"Some work still needs to be done. A number of mirror images need to be added to the current talks and ideas in the draft...we want to have more effective and qualitatively improved security architecture," said Peter Launsky, an Austrian foreign ministry official.