India and the United States have agreed on a process to ensure speedy action on a slew of agreements signed by the two countries during President Barack Obama’s New Delhi visit last month. Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar and US Ambassador Richard Verma have “agreed to a process that they will chair in Delhi on ensuring that the implementation moves forward aggressively,” US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal told the foreign media.
“We’re certainly working very hard here in Washington to supplement those efforts and to make sure that we are moving things across the interagency in a timely fashion,” Biswal said, stressing that the Obama visit went well beyond symbolism and atmospherics to result in a wide range of substantive agreements. On the landmark civil nuclear deal, where the two sides reported a “breakthrough” on the liability issue during the visit, Biswal signalled satisfaction with additional clarifications issued by the Indian Government, but conceded that it was for the US nuclear companies to make their own judgments and investment decisions.
“We believe that India has clarified its compliance within the Vienna Convention on Supplementary Compensation, and that that has provided an understanding on which we believe this (deal) can move forward,” she said. Referring to the information put forward by New Delhi with respect to insurance pools to provide additional risk mitigation, Biswal said: “So I think that from our perspective, these understandings are important in being able to advance civil nuclear cooperation and move towards commercial opportunities.”
Asked about the US nuclear industry’s continuing reservations on some key aspects, Biswal declined to go into details, but said it is for the American companies to “draw their own conclusions and make their own decisions with respect to the commercial opportunities that exist and the parameters under which they’re ready to start down that path”. The breakthrough in New Delhi came after about half-a-dozen meetings of the contact group that was launched during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s US visit last September.
Even while noting that the additional statements, including by the Prime Minister, provide further clarity on the liability issue, Biswal said the contact group will continue to meet to engage and address matters that require further agreement or clarification. “We have an ongoing process, and the contact group is continuing its work to address any areas that require further clarification, but we do believe that the understandings that were reached between the United States and India during the visit of the President fundamentally address the outstanding concerns that we had and advance civil nuclear cooperation. So in that sense, we do believe that this was a significant breakthrough,” Biswal commented.
Replying to a question on Obama’s comments on religious intolerance in India, she said the speech dwelt on “shared values, frankly, that define our partnership and relationship”. “I think (it) was a very powerful speech and I got very positive feedback, frankly, from everyone that I spoke to, both within government and elsewhere,” Biswal said, adding that President Obama, more recently, had spoken “quite compellingly about the need for all of us to be perfecting our own societies, our own democracies, as we seek to create a more perfect union, as he put it”.