By Manish Chand
New Delhi, Sep 17 (IANS) Even as India’s nuclear chief Anil Kakokdar is in Vienna to attend a meeting of the IAEA, the Left Monday warned that a dialogue with the government would become “meaningless” if it went ahead with talks with the UN nuclear watchdog to operationalise the India-US nuclear deal.
“If the government goes ahead with the India-specific negotiations with IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), the position would become untenable. The dialogue would become meaningless,” Communist Party of India leader D. Raja told IANS Monday when asked to comment on Kakodkar’s presence at the IAEA’s five-day meeting in Vienna.
“He is attending a regular meeting of the IAEA. We have no problems with it as India is a member of the IAEA,” Raja said.
“But there will be serious problems if the government starts negotiations with IAEA. Our understanding with the government is that it will not take the next step in operationalising the nuclear deal, which is negotiations with IAEA,” he said.
India is one of the members of the IAEA’s 35-country board of governors. Kakodkar, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, will address the 50th annual general meeting of IAEA Wednesday.
Raja was alluding to the joint committee which the Left parties have formed with the ruling United Progressive Alliance with a specific mandate to examine the implications of the 123 India-US civil nuclear agreement on India’s strategic freedom and its indigenous atomic energy programme.
The committee is set to hold its second meeting Wednesday even as the government readies to give a detailed reply to a note by the Left parties listing their objections to the nuclear deal.
Raja’s comments have an added piquancy as the government faces the grim prospect of the withdrawal of the crucial support of the Left combine, necessary for its survival. A Left pullout could make early elections inevitable.
In a no-nonsense message to the government, Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Prakash Karat warned last week that Left parties have “made up their mind” on the nuclear deal – a veiled hint that they will not mind pulling the rug from under the government if it went ahead with the deal.
“We have made up our mind. We won’t be there to help the government to conclude the agreement. It’s now for the government to decide,” Karat said, adding that the contentious deal aimed at drawing India into “a military alliance with the US”.
But despite an agreement with the Left parties, the government appears determined to complete the next two steps – IAEA negotiations and clearance from the Nuclear Suppliers Group – to operationalise the nuclear deal.
Negotiations with IAEA may start by the middle of the next month, a reliable source told IANS.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said recently in Bangkok that nuclear technology and fuel would be available to India “once India-specific safeguards are in place”.
The US has also stepped up pressure on India to conclude the agreement at the earliest. Otherwise it will become difficult for the deal to sail through the US Congress once election fever grips Washington early next year.