New Delhi
16 November 2007
By Seema Mustafa and Ramesh Ramachandran
The nuclear deal has been effectively stalled till the end of this year,
well past the deadlne set out by the United States. The Left and the UPA joint committee
on the civil nuclear energy, at a 90 minute meeting on Friday, has decided to "examine"
the impact of the provisions of the Hyde Act and the 123 agreement on the IAEA
safeguards agreement. "This will require talks with the IAEA Secretariat for working out
the text of the India specific safeguards agreement. The government will proceed with
the talks and the outcome will be presented to the committee for its consideration before
it finalises its findings," minister of external affairs Pranab Mukherjee said reading out
from a joint statement.
CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat explaining this further told reporters from the
print media after the meeting, "we have come to an understanding that the outcome of
the talks between the IAEA secretariat and the government will be brought to this
committee before the text is either initialled or put before the Board of Governors. The
committee will bring this under its jurisidiction and will examine and study it before
taking a final decision." He said that the talks with the IAEA had been "split into two
stages" with the committee having given clearance to the government to bring back the
result of its discussions with the IAEA for scrutiny. The operationalisation of the deal by
initialling and sending the text to the IAEA Board of Governors would be Stage Two now,
he added.
Mr Karat said in response to a question that there was no shift in the Left stand. Asked if
the government decided to go ahead and put the nuclear deal on auto pilot through the
IAEA and the NSG, Mr Karat said, "then the government will be also put on auto pilot." He
said that there was no deal with the government on Nandigram either pointing out that
"these negotiations on the nuclear deal have been going on since September, and
besides we are not going to allow national policy to be influenced by developments in
one block." Left sources said that they have put safeguards into the agreement with the
government today, "we have placed our own inbuilt safeguards to ensure that they
cannot operationalise the nuclear deal." The sources pointed out that the Left's
opposition to the safeguards agreement was not on its merits or otherwise, but because
but to the 123 agreement which the former was intended to operationalise.
The wording of the joint statement was worked out with great care. The first paragraph
said that the "committee has discussed the implications of the Hyde Act on the 123
agreement, on foreign policy and security matters. After further discussions it was
decided that the impact of the provisions of the Hyde Act and the 123 agreement on the
IAEA safeguards agreement be examined." No time frame has been worked out for this,
and a senior Left leader said at a background briefing, "that this could take weeks." The
next meeting of the committee will be set after the government gets back with the results
of the deliberations with the IAEA. The joint statement at the end of the meeting has
ensured, categorically, that the government will not move on the safeguards agreement
until and unless the committee "gives its findings." This will take the process into 2008
as the next meeting of the committee can now only be in December.
It was made crystal clear by the Left that it is in no mood to yield and has allowed the
discussions only because "it would have been unreasonable to do so, particularly when
the government was willing to come back to us before finalising the safeguards
agreement." The second paragraph of the joint statement makes it apparent that the
government will not proceed until the committee finalises "its findings." This, the Left
leaders said, could take another few weeks or even months. The new time schedule set
out by US pointperson Nicholas Burns after the nuclear deal hit a road block here, has
also gone awry. He had wanted the IAEA negotiations to be completed in September-
October, NSG clearances obtained in November, with the 123 agreement wrapped up and
presented to Washington for the expected ratification by the US Congress in January
2008. Now, the government can at best, complete the new Stage One of the IAEA
discussions by December.
Six meetings of the UPA-Left committee have taken nearly three months. The sources
said that it would take at least another several meetings to discuss the impact of the
Hyde Act and the 123 agreement on the safeguards agreement. There are provisions in
the 123 agreement that make for some specific inclusions in the IAEA agreement, and
might not be acceptable to the Left parties. The sources said that the Left parties had
been kept out of the finalisation of the Hyde Act and the 123 agreement. "The change is
that this time we are in the picture, the discussions with the IAEA have been brought into
the jurisdiction of the committee, and the government has agreed to get our consent
before taking any further step," the sources said. The government had been insisting on
this move that the Left parties, after detailed consultations have allowed, but ensured
that the commitment to get back to the committee after the first stage was put down in
writing by the government.
CPI General Secretary AB Bardhan, in turn, said that there was no shift in the Left's
stand on the nuclear deal. He explained that fuel is not apples or oranges that one could
buy anytime, anywhere, and India needed to proceed with the IAEA talks in order to
become eligible for fuel supply from multiple sources like Russia and France. That, he
reasoned, was an "overwhelming argument" and the Left accordingly agreed to allow the
Manmohan Singh Government to at least proceed with the IAEA talks while ensuring that,
as the joint statement issued after the meeting read, the outcome will be presented to the
committee for its consideration. "The government will bring the text to the committee. If
the text is found to be inconsistent or if it compromises with our position with regard to
the 123 Agreement then the committee will [take appropriate action,]" Mr Bardhan said.
The Left's opposition, he added for good measure, is to the proposed India-United States
civil nuclear cooperation agreement in general and the 123 Agreement and the Hyde Act
in particular.
Mr Abani Roy of the Revolutionary Socialist Party told this newspaper that the Left
parties have allowed the government to proceed with the IAEA talks but with conditions.
One of those conditions, he explained, is that the draft of the India-specific safeguards
agreement will be placed before the UPA-Left committee fort its consideration. He sought
to suggest that the next meeting of the committee is not likely to be held anytime before
the middle of December.
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