Q. There is criticism that the recent agreements with the US were signed in a great hurry without the political machinery being consulted.
A. Before we left the entire concept of what exactly we were planning to enter into and where the lines were being drawn were explained to the Cabinet Committee on Security, the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs and to the stalwarts of the NDA and the Left. Even the UPA chairman (Sonia Gandhi) was briefed by the Prime Minister and External Affairs Natwar Singh. As a matter of fact, most of them said that what you say is what you would deliver on we will have no major objections.But the exact lettering was finalised literally as the President and the prime minister were having their press conference in Washington. In fact, we broke up the previous night over certain differences.

PICTURE SPEAK

Narayanan

Q. What were the differences that almost stalled the agreement?
A. The US was not willing to accept the idea of "a phased programme" for demarcating our civilian and military nuclear facilities or the word "voluntary" to decide which facility we would bring under international safeguards. Nor were they very happy with the usage of the word "reciprocal" to calibrate our steps. In fact, the prime minister went to sleep that night a very disturbed person.

Q. Why was he upset?
A. The prime minister had put his credibility on the line. If we did not have a satisfactory settlement of the nuclear issue lots of people would have criticised us. But he was clear that nothing India would do would ever compromise any of the basic principles.

Q. How were these overcome?
A. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came the next morning and had a meeting with the prime minister that lasted 20 minutes.

Q. Then what happened?
A. The prime minister made the point to her that there was no way you could talk of a changed relationship or transformed relationship between India and the US without making concessions. That every time he had met President Bush the nuclear issue had been the subject of discussion. He had asked her to mention this to the President and she did. After that we got most of what we had told them.

Q. What did India gain on the nuclear front?
A. In a sense it is the dismantling of the nuclear restraint regime. Everybody thinks that we are going in for another three bombs tomorrow. But the thrust of the prime minister was strongly on the energy sector. He has been concerned that we require nuclear power to meet our energy shortage.

Q. Your point being ...
A. How we could do this without affecting our strategic programme is the crux. In that sense the strategic programme has been left untouched. What has really been done is to open a window of opportunity for widening our civilian nuclear infrastructure.

Q. There are differences in the Indian scientific community over it?
A. We talked to all the former atomic energy board chairmen and they are on board with us on this. What caught their fancy is the buzzwords that the whole agreement has been predicated. One is that whatever we do in terms of separating our civilian and military programme is to be done in a phased manner. Once the separation is done, the decision of which will be placed under the military and which will be placed under the civilian programme would be entirely left to India. This is the crux. The whole issue was underlined by the word voluntary which is very significant word. And under the IAEA only those deemed as nuclear weapons state can do this.

Q. Why weren't the Americans willing to acknowledge that we are`a nuke weapons state?
A. They said it would be an affirmation that they really don't have the right to do so. That's it's not with them. You cannot called be a nuclear weapons state by one country. If you see the agreement the US president has agreed for the first time that as a responsible state with advanced nuke technology India should acquire same benefits and advantages as other states. You are talking of the president of the US making the statement.

Q. Experts say that our nuclear programme is like a revolving door and you can't really separate civilian and nuclear as is expected. Iin doing so you be costly exercise apart form being impossible?
A. This is something that nuclear scientist have said it is possible. The question if you ask them to do tomorrow it isn't. What they want is the ability to do in their own time. In their own time they can' t take years - it cant be relaxed like the UK which took 48 years to complete. Certainly there is a cost involved as we may have to duplicate certain facilities no doubt. Since we have the choice to put what is under safeguard then we have the option. The thing has been largely done to get nuclear fuel. If you are thinking in terms of getting 10000 or 20000 MW of nuclear power we really require fuel.

Q. Brajesh Mishra, your predecessor, says that the deal is going to cap our nuclear weapons programme.
A. Deterrence will be affected only if we do not have the choice. Under the agreement the choice is ours. That is the crux. It is for us to decide which of the reactors would be for military or civilian use. We will decide on the basis of what the future threat would be. The choice of which reactors and how many will be made by our strategic community and scientists. We will have enough fissile material available to meet our current and future needs.

Q. What about new reactors?
A. It is our choice. If it is in the military realm you do not get fuel from outside. If you want fuel from outside it is to be put under safeguards.

Q. A.B. Vajpayee said that all President Bush has given is promises that may never be fulfilled.
A. President Bush is an iconoclast. Once he has got a thing in his mind he goes out and gets it. I think the prime minister has come back with an extremely fine deal. If you say that the US President and the prime minister did it only to make a statement it would be unfair to both sides. If that was so, the US could have said they supported our bid for a permanent Security Council seat. They made it clear that they would not be able to deliver on that.

Q. Why couldn't we persuade the US to back our Security Council bid?
A. Obviously they had very strong reservations about the G-4 (India, Japan, Brazil and Germany had formed a grouping to lobby their case). The US was hoping that we would break the G-4. I must say to our credit, specifically to the external affairs minister backed by the prime minister, that we said no. Without the G-4 we would not have got so far. To break ranks now would be a matter of breaking faith.

Q. Terror attacks are up in Kashmir and other parts of India. How serious is the situation?
A. What I think is more dangerous is that there is a much higher level of sophistication in the attacks. It is not merely numbers but also the quality. Moreover in terms of the targets-it has moved out of the limited realm and now the targets are religious places like Ayodhya and army cantonments. We have already caught a few groups that were trying to attack the Infosys headquarters in Bangalore, the Siddhi Vinayak temple in Mumbai and even the RSS headquarters in Nagpur.

Q. Isn't Pakistan to blame?
A. I am not blaming all this on Pakistan. But you cannot run an operation of this scale without ISI backing. Definitely the attack on Ayodhya where the Lashkar-e-Toiba was involved was. Lashkar is a creature of the ISI.

Q. The Government is not pushing Pakistan hard enough on curbing cross-border terrorism.
A. There is a saying that a soft answer turneth the wrath away. On cross-border terrorism, there has been no diminution of intensity by which it has been stated. The prime minister even told US that Pakistan has not dismantled its terrorism infrastructure.

Q. Has he spoken to Musharraf?
A. Even on the night of July 29, when President Musharraf rang up the prime minister to sympathise about Mumbai's floods he told him clearly the dialogue process would be affected if he didn't rein in the jehadis operating from his side. I think Musharraf understood the language that was used.

Q. Has the intensity of the attacks impacted the dialogue?
A. What we have warned Pakistan is that there are certain thresholds and if they are crossed the entire thing collapses. President Musharraf has invested very heavily on the dialogue. He is worried that if it collapses as a result of something of this kind then he does not have a leg to stand on internationally and here. The prime minister is using this card. What it shouldn't do is for anybody to think we are becoming complacent. We are concerned that if an incident like Ayodhya had turned out otherwise, all dialogue with Pakistan would have evaporated.

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