Top Indian and US nuclear negotiators have done their job. After months of scanning each and other’s drafts, they arrived at a common final draft of the much-talked about bilateral civil nuclear co-operation agreement, better known as “123 agreement.” It is now up to their respective political leaderships to give the clearance for the agreement, which will formally end three decades of Indo-US nuclear freeze.

The process of political clearance in New Delhi and Washington, however, is unlikely to come about immediately. Dr Singh’s challenge is to obtain the endorsement from his Left partners, Opposition BJP and an articulate scientific community. All of them have been raising relevant but uneasy questions over strategic aspects of the deal. As soon as he takes these vocal political and scientific sections on board, probably through a parliamentary debate, his government can be expected to formally clear the draft agreement. However, in the US, it is a formal process. Bush will have to get the draft cleared in the American Congress before he can sign it. How soon the two leaders would get the requisite political endorsement would greatly depend on what their negotiators have hammered out on some of the contentious issues like granting India the right to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, Delhi’s demand for uninterrupted fuel supply and the US persistence on having a “fall-back” safeguards arrangement.

These are still very early days. It is far from clear if the Indian negotiators have succeeded in shielding the agreement from some of the “unacceptable” prescriptions contained in the Hyde Act that was passed in US Congress last December. Non-proliferation hawks in the US would try to find fault with the final draft if they reckon that the Bush Administration has conceded too much to India, compromising America’s global non-proliferation goals. It is quite possible that the final draft reflects some “gives” and some “takes” from both sides. Dr Singh’s ability to sell the deal at home would depend vitally on what his negotiators have conceded to make the deal possible. Since that is not known now, the skeptics have chosen to wait for the details. It suggests that the purpose is not to oppose the deal for the sake of opposing. That even the skeptics have an open mind is a positive sign for the Prime Minister as he engages them for their endorsement in the days and weeks ahead.