Transcript of the Press Conference by External Affairs Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee at the Willard Hotel, Washington, DC

Washington, DC 
March 25, 2008

Mr.Rahul Chhabra, Spokesman, Embassy of India : It gives me great pleasure to welcome all of you this afternoon. 

We are privileged to have Indian External Affairs Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee here with us at this briefing. He has been here since day before evening. Yesterday, he had meetings with Dr. Rice, Secretary of State and he called on President Bush. To give you a flavor of his meetings, we circulated today’s opening statement and the speech that he made at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace yesterday.

We also have Ambassador Ronen Sen and DCM Ambassador Jassal here with us. The Minister will take questions. Before you pose the question, may I request you to identify yourselves and the organization that you represent?

One last piece of order; if you have forgotten to put your cell phones on silent mode, kindly do that now.

Thank you. Questions, please?

Erica?

Q: (Off mike.) Hi. Erica Nelson with Inside U.S. Trade. Number one, I’d like to know what Secretary Rice’s message to you was, specifically about the nuclear deal? And also, sorry, Speaker Pelosi’s message was last week on the nuclear deal? And secondly, how long do you expect the domestic review of the IAEA safeguards to take?

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS MINISTER PRANAB MUKHERJEE: In fact, while having discussions with Secretary Rice, we discussed a number of areas of mutual interest, including bilateral relations between India and the USA, and also sharing our perception on the developments of our region. The nuclear deal came up in our discussions. We have finalized the language of the text of the agreement for the process of signing. After that, it will be taken to the board of governors.

At this juncture, it is difficult for me to indicate any time frame by which we will be able to complete this process. 

We have some political problems in India with the agreement, particularly among our supporters of the coalition government, which we are heading. We are trying to resolve these issues, but it might take some more time.

Thank you. 

Mr.Rahul Chhabra: Next. Sridhar from PTI.

Q: (Off mike.) Sir – timelines. I was wondering if this issue was raised by the administration, also?

MINISTER MUKHERJEE: I am aware of the time frame, but as I mentioned there are certain issues which are yet to be resolved and unless those issues are resolved, it will be difficult for us to fix any particular time frame.

Thank you.

Mr. Rahul Chhabra : Deepak Dobhal?

Q: Is UPA ready to sacrifice government for this deal?

MINISTER MUKHERJEE: I stated the position earlier - in response to queries from our friends at home; it’s not a question of sacrificing the agreement or sacrificing the government. Currently, we are involved in resolving the issues and trying to find out whether we can find a meeting ground between us and a section of our supporters. 

Q: Mr. Mukherjee, welcome to Washington, DC. I’m Natasha Israni with Times Now. The question is: If you don’t find this consensus or a solution to this question with the Left government by June or by summer or even by August, what do you think is likely to happen then in terms of the stance of the Indian government on the deal?

MINISTER MUKHERJEE: You know, events have their own momentum – and we are interested in pursuing this deal and if we can evolve a consensus around this deal, it will be possible for us to develop the process, but as I mentioned, it is difficult for me to predict any time frame, so I cannot say whether it’s in the month of June or the month of August. Let us see how things move.

Mr. Rahul Chhabra: Yes. The gentleman here.

Q: David Morgan with Reuters. Minister, can you tell us what some of the sticking points are in these discussions? And can you also say whether or not your government has confidence that there will be deal in the end?

MINISTER MUKHERJEE: So far as, nuclear deal is concerned, our government is interested in fructifying this cooperation because we would like to have alternative source of clean energy. All of us are fully aware of the close linkage between clean energy and climate change. Keeping that in view, on the one hand, we shall have to protect the environment by resorting to more and more clean energy, which will have less adverse impact on the environment. On the other hand, to maintain the tempo of development, which we want to achieve around nine to ten percent annual GDP growth for the next 20 years to address our basic problems, we require substantial energy. From that point of view, we are interested in finalizing this cooperation agreement.

The other issues we discussed; we shared our perceptions on regional developments and also we shared our perceptions on climate change. As Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh already has pointed out that India is equally concerned like many other countries of creating the appropriate mechanism through which we share the common but differentiated responsibilities depending on the capabilities. 

We also welcomed the decision of President Bush to launch a fund to finance clean technological development. We shared our views on developments in our region, including the developments in Pakistan, Myanmar, etc. 

Therefore, apart from bilateral cooperation, which we are having, these are the issues which we discussed. Our talks were wide-ranging. 

Thank you.

Q: Minister, what I meant to ask, what are the sticking points in the discussions with the members of the government’s coalition – what is preventing progress?

MINISTER MUKHERJEE: Oh, they have their own ideological perception. It is not that every coalition partner is against it, mainly the Left parties who are supporting the government without participating in the government. In our country, we are having two types of supporters for the coalition. Some political parties are supporting the government and participating in the cabinet. 

Some political parties are supporting the government from outside without participating in the government. They feel that we should not have this arrangement with the USA and apart from that they also feel, a section of them, that we should explore the possibilities of going for clean coal technology since we are having abundant coal. Some of them feel that we should explore the possibilities of other sources of energy. 

So there are divergent views with respect to the demand for clean nuclear technology, but there is an overwhelming consensus that nuclear technology is important and nuclear energy will be one of the sources of clean energy and we should try to have it. 

Q: Chidananda Rajghatta from Times of India. Minister, you have said a couple of times before you came here that a minority government cannot, you know, go ahead with this deal. I’m wondering if you can address this not as the external affairs minister, but as a Congress Party functionary and a very senior public figure and political leader.

The Indian constitution doesn’t recognize minority governments and if you go down this path, the slippery slope tomorrow, any government can be held hostage to this principle that you might not be able to raise gas prices, petroleum prices, take any decision.

So do you still think that’s a valid position that a minority government cannot take decisions which affect international security?

MINISTER MUKHERJEE: So far, legal and constitutional – correct, they were correct that there is no such thing as minority government, but one of the basic concepts of parliamentary form of government is that a government, which enjoys the confidence of the directly elected house of parliament is considered as the government having the majority. But there is another political angularity, which cannot be ignored. As you are aware, on this deal – there has been divergent views, not only the Left, even the principal opposition party, BJP, who were in government for six years prior to our assuming the responsibility of governance, they are opposing the deal.

The coalition will have to take into account that even if we sign an important international agreement, if it is subsequently not honored by the next government, it may lead to an embarrassing situation. Sometimes it has happened, in history, we find a number of examples, but we want to avert that situation and that’s why we are making this exercise, maybe it’s time-consuming, it is testing our patience, but nonetheless, we do feel it is worth pursuing.

Thank you.

Mr. Rahul Chhabra: Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post. 

Q: U.S. officials, as well as Laura Bush have said that India has halted arms sales to Burma-Myanmar. I was wondering, could you confirm that? And could you also describe whether or not Secretary Rice asked you to do particular things with Burma in terms of putting pressure on that government?

MINISTER MUKHERJEE: During our course of discussion, the Myanmar issue came and so far as Myanmar is concerned, we have explained our position, what we have done to persuade the Myanmar authorities, to extend cooperation to Special Envoy, Mr. Gambari, special envoy to the Secretary-General and what steps they have initiated to carry on the political reforms and national reconciliation process in that country. 

They also appointed a special representative to carry on dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi. It is our persistent suggestion to the Myanmar authorities to please ensure that all important stakeholders, including Aung San Suu Kyi, are fully involved in the process of political reforms and national reconciliation, which you want to achieve, and at the same time, we are suggesting them to maintain peace and tranquility among the large number of ethnic entities who are in Myanmar. 

Therefore, this is one area where we are in touch with Myanmar authorities and when the Myanmar foreign minister visited India, I had detailed discussions with him. Mr. Gambari also discussed with us; we are in touch with others and we shared this information with the authorities with whom we had discussions here. 

So far, our arms supplies to Myanmar are concerned; we do not supply any arms. India is not a very major arms supplier to any other country. 

Mr. Rahul Chhabra : The gentleman at the back. 

Q: Ashim Jaklabati from Voice of America. Just yesterday, a change of guard has taken place in Pakistan and the government of India had been negotiating with Musharraf for a long time in the peace process and now Musharraf is a weak person since yesterday and how the Indian government will approach the peace process activities in dealing with Pakistan?

MINISTER MUKHERJEE: After all, in our concept of the government, it is always a continuing one. In any system of government, there may be change of political executives, but major policies of the government continue unless somebody wants to have a disruption in that. 

We are hoping to renew composite dialogue with Pakistan. I, myself, have expressed my desire to visit Pakistan as soon as the new government is in place, and I’m waiting for that. 

I hope that the new government will pick up the thread from where it was left by President Musharraf and will continue this exercise.

Thank you.

Mr. Rahul Chhabra : Last question, the lady at the back.

Q: I’m Yasmin Vossoughian from the Gallup Poll. We recently conducted a poll in your country that found that only 22 percent of Indians were familiar with the civilian nuclear deal, but of those 22 percent, almost 60 percent thought it was a good thing for India.

So my question to you is: How important do you think greater public knowledge of the civilian nuclear deal is to reaching a consensus?

MINISTER MUKHERJEE: I explained in detail how important it is for India because we require energy and at the same time, we shall have to depend more and more on clean energy. Right now, there are 300 million people in India who do not have any access to electricity. As for our assessment, the Planning Commission has made a detailed study. We still have to enhance installed power generation capacity in India from all sources nearly three times during the next five to seven years if we want to sustain eight to ten percent GDP growth for the next couple of decades. Therefore, energy requirement, and clean energy requirement is an absolute must. It may be that many of them are not fully aware of it, particularly with the level of understanding; the rate of literacy in our country, this is not a little unusual, but at the same time, I must say that in informed circles, there is a broad consensus about the need of augmenting energy capabilities of India and its requirement to sustain the enhanced level of growth.

Thank you.

Mr. Rahul Chhabra: Thank you so much.

MINISTER MUKHERJEE: Thank you ladies and gentlemen.