N-fuel reprocessing accord with US on a meandering path

Washington: With India and Russia wrapping up impressive agreements in the civil nuclear field, resulting in Moscow walking away with contracts to build an additional 12 nuclear reactors at its reserved sites, Washington continues to mouth platitudes about remaining "very much committed" to the nuclear deal with India. The last holdout to sealing the Indo-US nuclear treaty in its entirety - an agreement on reprocessing fuel - is still awaiting a final resolution, even as US officials periodically announce "good progress" on such talks.

Invariably, such announcements come before or after important nuclear deals are signed or announced between India and other foreign countries. Presumably, these are a reminder to all and sundry that the Americans too are in the game.

With the Russian premier Vladimir Putin walking away with a prize deal for installation of atleast 12,000 MWe of power over the next ten years, Washington officials have now stepped to the podium to announce that results on reprocessing talks ought to emerge well before the August deadline.

"So, we're now in the process of implementing that agreement," Robert O Blake, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, said.

"We have very important talks on reprocessing under way. Those are, I think, making good progress, and the deadline for completing those is August of this year, and we expect to be done well before then," Blake said.

It is important to note that the official did not say that the deal would be in place even in April when Indian PM, Manmohan Singh, would once be visiting Washington as part of a larger nuclear summit called by president Barack Obama.