The Hindu : National : NDA apprises Kalam of its `concerns' on nuclear deal

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Saturday, Aug 12, 2006

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NDA apprises Kalam of its `concerns' on nuclear deal

Special Correspondent

— PHOTO: S. Subramanium

PLEA TO PRESIDENT: National Democratic Alliance leaders coming out of the Rashtrapati Bhavan after meeting President Abdul Kalam regarding the India-U.S. nuclear deal issue, in New Delhi on Friday.

NEW DELHI: A National Democratic Alliance delegation led by the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, met President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam on Friday to apprise him of their "concerns" on the India-U.S. nuclear deal and seek his intervention to prevail upon the Government to accept "the sense of our Parliament."

In a memorandum submitted to the President, the NDA said the bills approved by the U.S. House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the U.S. Senate (on the Indo-U.S. declaration signed by President George Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 18, 2005) held "serious implications for the autonomy of India's decision-making, for the independence of its foreign policy, the integrity and reliability of our strategic options and the future of our scientific research."

BJP leader L. K. Advani said when the agreement was signed, the party had "expressed its reservations" and after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement in Parliament, subsequently "it was clear that India's interpretation of the declaration was different from that of the U.S."

He said the decisions of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate to impose "crippling conditionalities" on India had proved their worst apprehensions on the deal. In its memorandum, the NDA said the nuclear deal with the U.S. could not be acceptable to India unless it involved full nuclear cooperation with India, accorded India same rights as other nuclear weapon states, allowed Indian action at any stage to be only reciprocal and held that India would accept international inspections on its civil facilities or any binding obligation only after "all restrictions have been lifted."

Further, any nuclear cooperation agreement must provide for uninterrupted and unconditional supply of nuclear fuel to India, a permanent waiver of relevant U.S. domestic laws without annual review and certification, the IAEA inspection of India's civil nuclear facilities only while the deal holds, complete freedom to India's strategic and foreign policy options and an explicitly stated right to India to terminate the agreement on national security grounds, the memorandum said.

The delegation included JD(U) leader George Fernandes, Ananth Gete (Shiv Sena), Brij Kishore Tripathi (Biju Janata Dal) and BJP leaders Murli Manohar Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, V.K. Malhotra, Ananth Kumar, S.S. Ahluwalia and Santosh Gangawar.

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