By Manish Chand, IANS
On Board Air India One : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday said that there is a “setback” to the India-US civil nuclear deal due to the Left opposition, but his government has not given up hope of building national consensus and will find a way out of the present political impasse.
Manmohan Singh admitted that India’s safeguards negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been put on hold and his government will move on with the next steps, including the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) rule change, after political problems blocking the nuclear deal are resolved.
“We are in a coalition, we have to find a way out and I have not given up hope,” Manmohan Singh told reporters in a mid-air press conference on his way back home from Johannesburg.
“I have mentioned that there are some difficulties. I think we will make every effort. We are trying to evolve national consensus,” he replied when asked whether his government was hopeful of completing the nuclear deal before end-2008.
“I hope that the process which emerges as a result of wide-ranging discussions with our coalition partners will enable us to move forward. I think we have to resolve our problems as home and that process is on,” Manmohan Singh said.
“Our discussions with the members of the NSG will come only after we have an India-specific safeguards agreement with IAEA,” he said when asked if Brazil and South Africa offered their support to India in the NSG when he met Presidents Lula da Silva of Brazil and Thabo Mbeki of South Africa during the IBSA summit in Pretoria Wednesday.
“Only after that, the NSG members will consider cooperation with us. The problems that have arisen – you all know about it,” he said.