Unshaken by Left's pullout, PM optimistic about N-deal

UNRUFFLED: The PM is getting on with his job at the 34th G-8 Summit at Toyako in Japan.

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New Delhi: As the political decibel level over the Indo-US nuclear deal rises in India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is getting on with his job at the 34th G-8 Summit at Toyako, Hokkaido in Japan.

Surrounded by his aides — the National Security Advisor, Foreign Secretary and his special envoy — the PM carried on with the meeting, seemingly unperturbed, when the news of Left Front’s withdrawal reached him.

Answering a foreign journalist’s question, he said the pullout would not affect the UPA Government.

Just hours earlier, he had been busy with China’s President Hu Jintao hoping to get a concrete assurance from China's communists that they would not block India's path in acquiring the Nuclear Suppliers Group approval.

Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon sounded more hopeful about the deal than he has till now.

“The NSG members we have spoken to so far are supportive and certainly the number of those who have told us that they don't anticipate problem has increased steadily since we started discussing this issue,” Menon said.

The PM, who is now reasonably confident that China won’t pose any problems, will be meeting US President George Bush on Wednesday to thrash out a timetable for the Indo-US nuclear deal.

What the deal’s timetable looks like:

• India formally notifies the safeguards agreement with the IAEA secretariat within a few days.
• The IAEA board reviews the agreement and decides by August or September
• Simultaneously, the US begins lobbying the 45-member NSG for an okay to engage in nuclear business with India — a process that may be less cumbersome than expected because most IAEA members are NSG members too
• If things go smoothly, the NSG waiver comes through by September, following which the 123 agreement istabled in the US congress within the same month
• The agreement then lies idle for 60 days as per Hyde Act. In December, it goes in for a vote when congress returns

(With Surya Gangadharan in Toyaka)