New Delhi
25 July 2007
The Left parties have told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in no
uncertain terms that they will not endorse the 123 Agreement until they have studied the
fineprint of the full text and consulted the scientific community.
CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat, who was invited along with CPI General
Secretary AB Bardhan and CPI National Secretary D Raja to the Prime Minister's
residence for a discussion on Wednesday night, said that the Left has reserved its
opinion on the draft 123 Agreement that will operationalise the proposed India-United
States civilian nuclear cooperation.
Mr Karat said, "They briefed us and we told them till the full text comes we cannot say
anything now." He added that the text of the123 Agreement has not been shared with
them yet.
Mr Bardhan, in turn, said that the Left parties would be in a position to say whether they
are satisfied with the 123 Agreement only "when the text is in our hand". He said wryly
that the government "never asked for our endorsement" because, as Prime Minister
Singh told them, the government has approved the 123 Agreement and "it is [now] the
government policy".
He said that the government has assured the Left parties that the text of the 123
Agreement would be released on August 2. The matter is expected to come up in
Parliament on August 13. (The monsoon session of Parliament begins on August 10.)
"According to them whatever was contained in the July 18, 2005 India-US Joint Statement
and also the March 2, 2006 Separation Plan and what discussion took place in
Parliament and the nine points which were there, according to them these have been
fulfilled," Mr Bardhan said.
"Only when have gone through the entire text which consists of about 16 or 17 articles
and we have gone through the entire fineprint of that text that we will be able to say what
our views are," he said. "Let us first understand the meaning of the articles and their
significance. Only when we understand and talk to the scientific community [can we say]
whether we are satisfied or not".
He added, "It was also agreed that we will meet again after August 2." Minister of
External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee, National Security Adviser MK Narayanan, Foreign
Secretary Shivshankar Menon and Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar
were present in the meeting.
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