Brushing aside the Left opposition, the Manmohan Singh government made its intentions to go ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal clear, as its special envoy Shyam Saran on Wednesday held consultations on the issue with US Ambassador David C Mulford.

The consultations here came in the backdrop of Thursday’s informal  meeting of the members of the 45-country Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in Vienna to consider India’s request for a waiver of the NSG guidelines.The NSG’s informal meeting takes place on the sidelines of the ongoing annual meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is being attended by Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Dr Anil Kakodkar.

The Mulford-Saran meeting assumes significance, since the US is required to play a key role in persuading other NSG members to come round to relaxing NSG’s non-proliferation guidelines. This would  enable India to return to the mainstream of international nuclear trade.

India will not be there in the meeting, as it is not a member of the NSG. But Dr Kakodkar attended a meeting with the NSG troika of Germany, South Africa and Brazil a couple of days back to discuss the matter. Mr Saran has individually interacted with almost all 45 NSG members to shore up support for India’s cause.

In the midst of the raging UPA-Left battle over the deal and CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat’s demand for putting the deal on hold for six months, the US ambassador on Tuesday strongly urged the Manmohan Singh government to expedite the remaining steps to finalise the bilateral deal. He said that India was running out of time, as the US would be on election mode in the next year.

Mr Mulford added that the deal had a good chance to fructify during the term of the Bush Administration and the life of the present US Congress. 

 Mission to China
The UPA’s resolve to go ahead with operationalising the deal was also clear from other moves. According to all indications, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi herself would shoulder the responsibility of winning over a reluctant China to support India’s case in the NSG and IAEA. She is tentatively scheduled to visit Beijing towards the end of next month on a mission to overcome the Chinese resistance to the nuclear deal.

Earlier this week, Foreign Secretary Shivshanker Menon air-dashed to Beijing, presumably to  carry out the groundwork for Mrs Gandhi’s planned visit to China in the last week of October.