By IANS
New Delhi : Ahead of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-Left meeting Friday, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee Wednesday said the government was engaged in building a consensus with its partners on the stalled India-US nuclear deal.
“We are engaged in building a consensus with the UPA partners (on the nuclear deal). All the partners in the UPA government will be consulted,” Mukherjee told reporters on the sidelines of a function to inaugurate the new building housing the Foreign Service Institute.
“We have reconvened a meeting of the UPA-Left committee Friday. We have held five meetings of the committee so far. Parliament is opening tomorrow. Let’s wait and see what happens,” he replied when asked if he expected a breakthrough in the nuclear committee’s meeting over approaching the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the negotiations.
Although Mukherjee sounded positive about the outcome of Friday’s meeting, he didn’t say it in so many words. “We hope a way out will be found at the meeting. But I am hopeful that something positive would come out,” he had said Tuesday.
The minister did not say when the debate on the nuclear deal would take place in parliament.
In a breakthrough of sorts for the government over the stalled nuclear deal, the Left parties that fiercely oppose the deal have indicated they may allow the government to go ahead with negotiations with the IAEA provided the government gets their concurrence before signing any final agreement.
Besides the nuclear deal, the issue of violence in Left-ruled West Bengal’s Nandigram area will figure prominently in the discussions in the winter session of parliament that begins Thursday.