Somini Sengupta on the Fragile State of the U.S-India Nuclear Deal
The US-India nuclear deal might be at risk, argues Sengupta in an article for the World Security Network. The countries are particularly divided over two issues:
- Granting India permission to carry out further nuclear tests and changing its status to a ‘nuclear weapons state’.
- Reprocessing spent nuclear fuels. The US worries that spent fuel might be used for the production of weapons-grade plutonium, although India says it intends to use it for civilian purposes only.
The deal is not lost yet, but upcoming elections have set a time limit on negotiations. Collapse of the deal would be a significant setback for US-India relations.
