By IANS
New Delhi : The political stand-off over the India-US civilian nuclear deal is likely to ease with the government preparing to set up a committee to address Left concerns, but the communists made it clear Wednesday that this should be accompanied by a freeze on nuclear negotiations.
The ruling Congress leaders, who have held discussions with the four Left parties in the last two days, discussed modalities of the mechanism with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi Wednesday.
The four Left parties held a separate meeting of their own, and later announced that they would be ready to cooperate with the government for the smooth functioning of the committee.
“We are waiting for an official response from the government. But we have reiterated our position that the deal cannot be operationalised,” Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary A.B. Bardhan told reporters after the hour-long meeting.
“The announcement of the committee has to be accompanied by a declaration that the negotiations over the deal would be blocked,” Bardhan said.
The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the Left are expected to meet Thursday to finalise the proposed mechanism.
The Left leaders insist that the committee should comprise leaders from both sides. While Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), CPI and Forward Bloc have indicated that they would have representatives on the committee, the smaller Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) has not made clear its stand.
Sources said Wednesday’s Left meeting was also an effort to settle the differences among the Left allies over their stance on the nuclear deal.
Left sources indicated that the committee might be headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who along with Defence Minister A.K. Antony and senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel was talking to Left leaders.
The CPI-M-led Left parties that extend crucial support to Manmohan Singh’s multiparty government have clarified that they would not support the nuclear agreement with Washington. Although it had issued warnings that there would be serious consequences if the government went ahead with the deal, the Left said it did not want to pull down the government.
Congress sources indicated that the government was prepared to announce the committee by Thursday evening and freeze the negotiations over the deal for the time being.
New Delhi was expected to negotiate an India-specific safeguard protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna in mid-September.