By IANS
New Delhi : Confusion continued over the India-US civilian nuclear deal Friday with the government insisting it can go ahead and negotiate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its Left allies asserting the deal is on hold until a political panel comes out with its findings.
Contradictory claims over whether or not the government could negotiate with the the IAEA at this stage emerged following confusion over the definition of the term ‘operationalisation,’ with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee denying Left claims that talking to the IAEA meant operationalising the deal.
“The IAEA talks cannot be a part of operationalisation. Talks may succeed or may fail. Operationalisation means that you put the deal into effective implementation,” Mukherjee told reporters.
In tandem, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi said even though no dates had been fixed for the IAEA talks, New Delhi was free to negotiate despite Thursday’s establishment of a political mechanism to examine the Left concerns.
“Negotiations on the Indo-US nuclear deal are not put on hold,” Dasmunsi said, adding: “How can I say it has been put on hold? We shall have to complete the process which we shall have to keep in mind.”
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said India is set to break its decades-old isolation to enter into nuclear commerce, declaring that the country could not “afford to miss” the nuclear bus.
On Thursday evening, Mukherjee announced that a joint committee of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and its Left allies would look into “certain aspects of the bilateral agreement, the implications of the Hyde Act on the 123 agreement (between New Delhi and Washington) and (on) self-reliance in the nuclear sector, the implications of the nuclear agreement on foreign policy and security cooperation.
“The operationalisation of the deal will take into account the committee’s findings,” he said after a meeting with Left leaders at Manmohan Singh’s residence.
However, the Left and the government define “operationalisation” differently, it emerged Friday.
“Yes, it includes the negotiations with the IAEA also,” Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Mohammed Salim said.
“The Left has been asking the government not to go in haste over the deal. There is no change in our stance,” Salim, who faced a volley of questions from the media over Thursday’s announcement, said.
While the Left claimed that the government had bowed down to its demand of “pausing” the negotiations until the their concerns are addressed in the committee, the government says it has bought more time from the Left.
“But we will sign the deal before we go for next general elections,” said a senior Congress leader.
Mukherjee also emphasised that there was no wording to say “the deal is put on hold” in the statement that he read out after the UPA-Left meeting Thursday.
The Left’s warning that there would be serious consequences if the government went ahead with nuclear agreement with Washington has threatened the Manmohan Singh-led government’s stability as it depends on the four-party Left bloc for support in parliament.
The committee, which is expected to be a 14-member panel with six members from the Left and the others from the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), is seen as a time-buying mechanism to “convince” the Left that the deal with the US will not compromise the country’s independent foreign policy and indigenous nuclear weapons programme.
The formation of the committee ended a standoff between the government and the Left, which is vehemently opposed to the nuclear deal saying that it would not be in the national interest.
However, CPI-M leaders indicated that the government, during its marathon meetings Thursday, gave them a “clear assurance” that New Delhi will not proceed with India-specific safeguard protocol negotiations in the mid-September IAEA meeting.
“We will go by the assurance given to us by the UPA leadership, not by media reports,” Salim said.
But government sources said Thursday’s statement read out by Mukherjee was “smartly drafted so that everybody has the scope to interpret it in the way they want.”