N-deal: Talks with IAEA from Nov 21

India will begin discussions on the safeguards agreement on Wednesday, reports Nilova Roy Chaudhury.

Atomic Energy panel chairman Anil Kakodkar will begin discussions on the India-specific safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Wednesday, sources have told HT.

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Kakodkar and other officials will meet IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei before talks with a technical team. The Board of Governors of the global watchdog body is scheduled to meet on November 22 and 23 to discuss implementation of ongoing safeguards and technical cooperation projects.

“We will be talking to the IAEA very soon,” Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said on Monday. He refused to specify a date.

Menon said the government was not constrained by the requirement to report back to the UPA-Left mechanism on the outcome of the talks in Vienna.

“It is not a constraint. It is a good thing,” he said at a briefing before PM Manmohan Singh’s departure for the ASEAN summit in Singapore.