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UPA-Left panel meet on May 6

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The United Progressive Alliance -Left joint committee on the India-U.S. civilian nuclear deal will meet here on May 6, Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury said on Wednesday.

Mr. Yechury told journalists that the opposition of the Left parties to the nuclear deal remained, but the government should consider the findings of the UPA-Left committee while taking the next step on the deal.

The last meeting of the committee took place on March 17 when the government briefed the Left allies on negotiations regarding safeguards conducted with the International Atomic Energy Agency .

The Left parties told the government that they would need to study the draft agreement before spelling out their stand on it.

The committee has been mandated to give its nod for the India-specific safeguards agreement with the IAEA which would pave way for the government to sign it.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee sought to assure the Left allies that the government would take the sense of the House on the civilian nuclear agreement before it was taken up for ratification by the American Congress.

“Before we go for Indo-U.S. nuclear deal ratification, we will come to Parliament to take the sense of the House even though there is no provision in the Constitution that stands in our way,” Mr. Mukherjee told journalists during an orientation programme on Parliamentary reporting.

On the Left’s apprehensions on the Hyde Act, he said it was the problem of the U.S. to implement it.

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