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PM assures CPI over N-deal apprehensions
CPI says it would approve the deal only after reading the whole agreement, reports Sutirtho Patranobis.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday assured the CPI (M) and CPI leadership that the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, which the government approved on Wednesday, addresses all the apprehensions that the Left had raised.
The two parties on their part said that they would only give approval to the deal after reading the whole text of the agreement comprising 16 articles. The text would be shared with the Left parties on August 2 after which the Left would again meet the government to share their views on it.
Prakash Karat, CPI general secretary, said the Left would "reserve its comment on the agreement till the text has been examined."
Karat along with CPI (M) politburo member, Sitaram Yechury, and CPI’s AB Bardhan and D Raja met PM Singh late on Wednesday night. Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, National Security Advisor MK Narayanan and Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission Anil Kakodkar were also present at the meeting.
Emerging from the meeting, Bardhan said the Left would only take a stand after reading the "articles as well as the fine print carefully. We will also discuss the agreement with the scientific community. The matter would be raised in Parliament (during the coming Monsoon Session, which begins on August 10) on August 13."
The Left had earlier raised nine objections on the earlier draft of the agreement. Some of the demands that the Left raised included lifting of existing sanctions on dual use of technology imposed on India for not signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the deal should not be tied to Indian foreign policy and a guarantee on fuel supply through other members of the Nuclear Supply Group if the US backed out.
Bardhan said that PM assured that all these nine objections have been addressed. "But we cannot endorse (the agreement) even if the government has before we go through it," the CPI leader said.
