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Thursday, Jul 20, 2006

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Review nuclear deal: Rajnath

Special Correspondent

Accepting the deal will amount to the country giving up its sovereignty on nuclear policy

Guwahati: Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh on Wednesday called for reviewing the nuclear deal with the United States as accepting the deal would amount to the country giving up its sovereignty on nuclear policy.

"We should rethink about the deal in agreement with Parliament as it is feared that it is going to freeze the sovereign right to devise a creditable nuclear deterrent in the future," Mr. Singh told reporters here.

The BJP president said two former Chairmen of the Atomic Energy Commission Homi Sethna and P.K. Iyenger had also said that India would be better off signing the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which permitted the exit of any signatory nation, rather than the nuclear deal with the U.S. that would bind the country for perpetuity.

He also demanded that the United Progressive Alliance Government make a statement in Parliament on the deal.

Mr Singh, who was here to address the two-day State executive meeting of the BJP, asked the Centre to tell the U.S. categorically that a nuclear deal with India and arming of Pakistan could not go together.

He said India should tell the U.S. that it should get the same waivers which had been given to China in the interest of global peace. If the U.S. did not agree to this , then India should scrap the nuclear deal with the U.S. and take Parliament into confidence to formulate an independent nuclear policy.

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