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Talks with IAEA to go ahead after Left’s okay

	November 19, 2007

With the Left parties giving the go ahead to the Manmohan Singh Government on approaching the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for an India-specific safeguards agreement, an Indian team may be going to Vienna soon. The Department of Atomic Energy chief Anil Kakodkar has been asked by the Government to talk to IAEA Director General Mohd. ElBaradei for scheduling technical talks. There are reports that the Prime Minister’s high level panel on the Indo-US nuclear deal, which has key members of the Atomic Energy Commission as its members, met on Nov. 16 night and authorised Kakodkar to proceed with the talks. National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan flew to Mumbai on Nov. 17 to hold talks with officials of the Department of Atomic Energy in this connection.



Left turn around at UPA-Left Committee meeting



The move to allow talks with the IAEA, virtually amounting to a climbdown by the Left from its earlier stand, was conveyed formally at the UPA-Left Political Committee meeting on Nov. 16. While the Government may go in for the negotiations, it will be unable to enter into an agreement with IAEA. The outcome of the talks will be presented to the Committee for its consideration before it finalises its findings on the Indo-US nuclear deal.



External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee read out the UPA-Left agreement, saying, “The impact of the provisions of the Hyde Act and the 123 Agreement should also be examined. This will require talks with the IAEA Secretariat for working out the text on the safeguards. The government will proceed with the talks and the outcome will be presented to the committee for its consideration before it finalises its findings.”



However, a top Left leader later made it clear that no concessions would be made on the 123 agreement.



“As long as George Bush is the President of the United States and till there are elections in India, we will not allow this deal to go through,” he said.



It is clear that the Left is working on a plan to disturb the time-frame for the deal set by India and the United States.



According to the Left, this means the emissaries will go to Vienna only to see what the IAEA is ready to offer. The government will not even put initials on the draft IAEA agreement and will return with the text. The text will be put before the UPA-Left committee for consideration and nothing will be done without the committee’s scrutiny.



CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat defended the party’s stand. “Yes, we have entered into an understanding, but this means the operationalisation hasn’t been initiated. Instead, we have brought the IAEA safeguards agreement within the purview of the committee, which was not the case earlier,” he said.



If the government decides to go ahead with negotiations despite the Left rejecting the draft, “We can assure you that there won’t be any government. If the government ignores us and goes on its own, we too will go in an auto-pilot mode (to withdraw support)”, said a Left leader.



Summing up the reasons for their change in stand, Left sources said just going to the IAEA to attend a meeting would make no material difference to the deal. They said the government was only allowed to talk with the secretariat and not the all-powerful board of governors.



The committee has fixed no time-frame to finalise its stand on the draft on nuclear safeguards.



This will further allow the Left to shoot down efforts to implement the nuclear deal during the Bush regime. “We are not bothered about the IAEA talks. We are not going to accept the 123 agreement,” said a Left leader.



However, Karat denied that Nandigram was used as a pressure point against the Left. “National policy is not decided on the basis of what’s happening in one block in West Bengal,” he said.





No change in Left’s stand : Karat



CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said that the Left parties allowing talks with IAEA on India-specific safeguards does not mean that there is a change in their basic position that the 123 agreement with the United States should not be operationalised.



Asked about the remarks made by National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan that the concession would enable the government to wrap up negotiations with the IAEA and get the Nuclear Suppliers Group clearance before taking the nuclear deal to the US Congress, Karat said, “negotiations with the NSG were not even on the horizon as yet.”



Karat said Parliament was also going to discuss the nuclear deal and the government would take the debate into account. Sources in the Left parties pointed to the agreement with the UPA that the findings of the committee would be taken into consideration before the deal was operationalised. But the key question here is : “Will there be agreed findings on the UPA-Left Committee ?”



Left climbdown a trade-off : BJP



The BJP has alleged that the climbdown by the Left on the Indo-US nuclear deal was the result of a trade-off between the Manmohan Singh Government and the CPI(M) over Nandigram. It said the compromise has exposed the CPI(M)’s drama over opposition to the deal. BJP leader Yashwant Sinha said in New Delhi that the Left’s opposition to the nuclear deal was not based on principle, but on convenience, and this has been made evident by the CPI(M)’s compromise with the government.



BJP Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha V.K. Malhotra said the Left move, if taken to its logical conclusion, would deny India the chance to conduct a nuclear test again for once and all times.



Senior BJP leaders said that the Congress and the Left had agreed to a quid pro quo arrangement, with the Congress agreeing to bail out the CPI(M) in West Bengal where it is in trouble over continuing violence in Nandigram.





PM meets Vajpayee to break nuclear ice



Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called on former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in New Delhi on Nov. 14 to inquire about his health. He utilised the occasion to extend belated Diwali greetings before seeking his support on the nuclear issue. Former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani was present at the meeting.



For the record, the Prime Minister’s Office spokesperson said : “In the course of the meeting, they discussed current political issues including the nuclear deal.” Dr. Manmohan Singh is said to have brought to Vajpayee’s notice an open letter to Members of Parliament by 23 eminent members of the strategic- scientific community who have backed the nuclear deal. The Prime Minister sought to emphasise that the deal poses no threat to the country’s strategic weapons programme.



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Eminent citizens ask MPs to support nuclear deal



Several top scientists, former armed services chiefs, high ranking diplomats and civil servants have issued an appeal to MPs from all political parties to support the nuclear deal. In an open letter, they asserted that the deal would help remove “crippling constraints” imposed by the international community on India’s nuclear programme.



They also strongly expressed the opinion that the 123 agreement does not negate India’s sovereign right to carry out nuclear tests or curtail its freedom to produce strategic weapons.



Among the signatories to the letter are former Atomic Energy Commission Chairman M.R. Srinivasan, former Space Commission Chairman Kasturirangan, former Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Arjan Singh, retired Army Chiefs V.N. Sharma and V.P. Malik, former Naval Chiefs Ram Tehliani and Madhvendra Singh as well as former Air Force Chief O.P. Mehra.



“Nobody can claim that the deal is perfect or gives us everything we would have liked. But all international agreements require movement away from one’s first preferences. All too often in our history we have suffered by insisting on the ideally desirable and rejecting what is attainable. The key questions are can we do better without the agreement or can we get a better one,” they asked.



Maintaining that the answer to the second question was no, the letter sought to emphasise that the agreement had given India as much as it had because of “a most particular combination of circumstances” that could hardly come again. There were forces at work internationally that would only complicate our position, they cautioned citing growing pressure for a comprehensive test ban treaty (CBT) and growing potential of American opponents of the agreement.



The letter pointed out that what was formally a bilateral agreement between India and the US was actually the basis for an agreement with the international community which has imposed constraints not only on our nuclear programme, but by withholding dual use technologies, on a wide range of possibilities for improving the lives of people. The country could not, for instance, get Russian reactors without going ahead with the Indo-US agreement, it stated.



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Govt came to BJP too late : Advani



Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L.K. Advani has said that if the Government had consulted BJP early enough on the nuclear deal, the situation could have been substantially different. He told reporters on Nov. 12 that the government came to the BJP too late and without any sincerity. The Government’s concern was to save itself and not the deal, Advani said.



According to Advani, the BJP will press for a discussion in Parliament on the nuclear deal under Rule 184 that entails voting. He said the deal impinges on India’s strategic programme.





Parliament to debate nuclear deal at the month-end



The long-pending Parliament debate on the Indo-US nuclear deal is now slated to take place in the Lok Sabha on Nov. 27, and in the Rajya Sabha two days later. The dates were fixed to ensure that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee would be back from their foreign tours by then.



At the meetings of the Business Advisory Committees of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, the dates were decided keeping in mind the availability of the Prime Minister as the Opposition wanted him to respond to the debate.





Ronen Sen may be let off with a word of caution



The Lok Sabha Privileges Committee is understood to have spared India’s Ambassador to the United States Ronen Sen of the possible humiliation of reprimand for his controversial “headless chickens” remarks. The panel which deliberated the issue late into the night on Nov. 16 has reportedly decided to recommend that Ronen Sen be let off with a word of caution for his act of indiscretion in making the controversial remarks against the critics of the Indo-US nuclear deal. The Privileges Committee took note of the unqualified apology tendered by Ronen Sen when he appeared before it.



The Rajya Sabha Privileges Committee is meeting on Nov. 20 to take up the issue.