India ’s special representative on the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, Shyam Saran, returned from a visit with Sweden , Norway , and Ireland trying to elicit their support for the deal without India signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). These three nations within the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers’ Group are some of the last holdouts against the deal and remain skeptical of the benefits to the world community. However, Brazil and South Africa had supported India’s nuclear ambitions and request to Belgium and Hungary is still pending.

India needs a consensus from the NSG to get the deal through but can be done only after the US Senate accepts the deal in the lame-duck session. India’s non-proliferation record, responsible behavior, democratic credentials, and unilateral moratorium on testing are still not enough to convince these nations on rewarding good behavior. Simultaneously, India has to negotiate a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and a so-called “ 1-2-3 Agreement” with the US. No matter what, the vote by NSG will happen only with the US Senate approval.

US assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher recently said here that Bush administration is hopeful as both the Democrats and Republicans want to take up Indo-US civil nuclear deal in the lame-duck session but that he couldn’t give any certainty on the enabling legislation coming up in this week’s session.