By IANS
New Delhi : The government Thursday intensified efforts to forge a political consensus over the India-US civil nuclear deal with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assuring his predecessor Atal Bihari Vajpayee that the 123 pact will not impact India's strategic interests and its indigenous three-stage nuclear energy programme.
Vajpayee, however, conveyed to the prime minister that his party will take a stand on the 123 pact finalised in Washington last week only after the government reveals the contents of the draft agreement.
"Our apprehensions have not been allayed completely," Yashwant Sinha, a former external affairs minister, said after the meeting at the prime minister's 7 Race Course residence.
"We have no reason to distrust him, but we would like to first go through the text of the draft agreement," he said.
"The text of the agreement is clearly frozen. Neither India nor the US can now make any changes in it. But they (government) have not shared with us the text of the agreement. They tried to share only the main elements of the agreement," Sinha said.
Sinha said the BJP delegation told the prime minister that in the absence of the text "to which we are not privy at this stage, it will be difficult for us to respond in detail to the provisions of the bilateral agreement".
The government is likely to unveil the 123 pact, that will re-open doors of global nuclear commerce for India, next week.
National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and Atomic Energy Commission chairperson Anil Kakodkar – three principal negotiators from the Indian side who were crucial in clinching the 123 pact with the US in Washington last week – told BJP leaders about finer aspects of the draft 123 pact and sought the BJP's support for it.
They assured Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders that all India's concerns were reflected and addressed in the 123 pact, official sources said.
"The BJP will come out with a structured response only after the deal comes in the public domain and all the contours of the deal are known to us," BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad told IANS after the meeting.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee was also present at the meeting that was attended by senior BJP leaders Rajnath Singh, Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and former national security adviser Brajesh Mishra.
Vajpayee raised some issues relating to the understanding on key issues of reprocessing and nuclear testing and stressed that India should never accept any clause that will compromise its strategic deterrence and its indigenous three-stage programme, party sources said.
Former deputy prime minister L.K. Advani could not attend the meeting as he is away in Singapore.
Early this month, Vajpayee asked the government to take the opposition into confidence over the nuclear deal and said no bilateral agreement with the US should be concluded on this issue till parliament has had a chance to discuss it thoroughly.
The Cabinet Committee on Security and the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs at a joint meeting Wednesday approved the 123 pact, expected to open the doors of global civil nuclear commerce after a gap of three decades.
The government began the process of selling the 123 deal Wednesday by organising a meeting between Manmohan Singh and key Indian negotiators with the Left leaders Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury, A.B. Bardhan and D. Raja.
The Left parties have said that they will make a detailed comment only after the full text of 30-page draft agreement is shared with them.
A statement on the draft pact will be made on the first working day of parliament. Intensive debate is likely to follow the presentation of the pact in parliament.