A top U.S. official shed light on the “breakthrough understanding” in civilian nuclear cooperation, which President Barack Obama reached with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi a week ago, describing it as the bilateral understanding that the Indian nuclear liability law was in “alignment” with the Vienna Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC).

Speaking at a conference on “Overcoming the U.S.-India Divide”, organised by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace here, U.S. Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs, Nisha Desai Biswal, however, hinted at an ongoing search for greater clarity on the assurances made by the Indian side during Mr. Obama’s historic visit as Chief Guest at India’s Republic Day celebrations.

She said, “We are still in the process of taking what these top-line commitments were and trading paper to be able to find the more detailed understandings,” adding, however, that the U.S. resolution of this “lingering challenge” hinged on the convergence between India’s 2010 Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act (CLND) and the 1963 CSC.

The Modi administration’s statement of alignment “will help to create the assurances that India’s liability law meets international standards, which is fundamentally what we have been seeking,” Ms. Biswal explained, adding that as those details get worked out “there is an understanding at the working level and the top level that needs to be memorialised in some way,” and this would define the way forward for Washington.

When asked by The Hindu about whether a “memorandum” capturing the essence of the administrative arrangement and liability implications stemming from the recent discussions would be consistent with the CLND, the Assistant Secretary said, “I think it would be for the Indian side to answer how such an understanding relates to the liability law that was passed.”

If in fact it was the confluence of liability implications of the CLND and the CSC that comprises the “breakthrough understanding” announced by Mr. Obama and Mr. Modi during the visit, it begs the question why this was not realised sooner, given that the language of the two laws has not changed since they became operational, and India has for years insisted that the two were mutually consistent.

Ms. Biswal, however, expressed confidence that given that the requisite understandings had been reached, “now it will be up to the companies to assess for themselves the business case scenarios and make their own decisions based on the commercial aspects – how to move forward.”