High-tech U.S. deal in offing

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is expected to sign a major agreement on Indo-U.S. high-tech cooperation when he meets with President Bush next week.

Diplomats suggested the agreement was part of a large effort to offer India incentives to soften its opposition to sending troops to Iraq.

Three senior Indian officials, including Deputy National Security Adviser Satish Chandra, arrived in Washington this week to work out the details of the agreement that Mr. Bush and Mr. Vajpayee were expected to sign in New York.

The two sides were working on an agreement in space and civilian nuclear cooperation, which would be the centerpiece of the Bush-Vajpayee meeting in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, diplomatic sources said.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Vajpayee are scheduled to meet Wednesday in New York, where they are attending the annual U.N. General Assembly.

In July, India’s top policy-making body, the Cabinet Committee on Security, decided it was not in the national interest to send troops to Iraq. Last month India said it needed an “explicit U.N. mandate” before it can “consider troop contributions.”

The United States is now in the process of seeking such a mandate from the U.N. Security Council.

Earlier this week, Mr. Vajpayee said India had not yet made a decision on the issue.

“I do not know what the U.N. Security Council is up to,” he told reporters in Ankara, Turkey. “India will take a clear decision once the U.N. Security Council’s stand is known.”

The need to expand high-tech cooperation was first discussed when Mr. Bush met Mr. Vajpayee in Washington in November 2001.

This was followed by two meetings between India’s National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra and his U.S. counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, to further define what India wanted and what the United States could offer.

Indian officials say increased cooperation on the issues would give substance to the idea of a “strategic partnership” with India that Mr. Bush first talked about in 2001.

Indian officials have complained in the past that Washington appears reluctant to share high-tech know-how with India, but they also acknowledge the Bush administration has shown more “political commitment” than previous U.S. governments in deepening ties with New Delhi. There have been more than 100 visits by senior U.S. officials in the past three years.