NEWSWEEK: Fareed Zakaria

U.S. Undersecretary Burns on Negotiations With India on Separating Civilian

and Nuclear Facilities: 'We're 90 Percent of the Way There'

ElBaradei Would Support U.S.-India Deal Once Negotiated

NEW YORK, Feb. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Newsweek International Editor Fareed
Zakaria writes in the current issue of Newsweek that U.S. Under
Secretary of State Nicholas Burns will visit India this week, in the
hope and expectation of being able to resolve the technical issues
that divide the Indian and the American negotiating teams, largely
relating to the separation of India's civilian and nuclear facilities.
"We're 90 percent of the way there," Burns told Zakaria. "We've got
just 10 percent to go. This has been a uniquely complicated
negotiation between two equal parties. But we are committed to it. And
as long as both of us show flexibility in the details, I'm confident
that we will come to an agreement."

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060219/NYSU004 )

Zakaria writes in the February 27 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands
Monday, February 20) that many in India are worried about American
pressure to take a stand against Iran. "I asked Burns about any
'linkage.' 'We're well beyond all that,' said Burns. 'India joined
with the majority of the board of the Atomic Energy Agency [to censure
Iran], including a majority of nonaligned countries-like Brazil, Egypt
and Sri Lank-to vote as it did. And we are all now focused on a
diplomatic path to address Iran's violations of its treaty
obligations'."

Zakaria also writes that the truth about nuclear weapons "is that
there has always been an exception for major powers-Britain, France,
Russia, China. The only real question is, does India belong in that
group? Also, what is the alternative policy toward India that has any
chance of changing its status-more lectures on nonproliferation? It is
this logic that has apparently persuaded Mohamed ElBaradei, the
world's nonproliferation czar, to support this deal once it has been
negotiated."

(Read Zakaria's column at www.Newsweek.com)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11436430/site/newsweek/ SOURCE Newsweek