The Hindu : Front Page : IAEA text was initialled before the Left parties withdrew support

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IAEA text was initialled before the Left parties withdrew support

Special Correspondent

New Delhi: India’s draft safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency was “initialled” on July 7 and moved to the Board of Governors for its approval on July 8, the government said on Saturday.

Addressing a press conference to explain the principal features of the agreement, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan said the Board was moved “soon after the Left parties said they did not wish to have the meeting scheduled for July 10.”

He said the government had been prepared to wait till July 10 “in case the Left parties had some other constructive suggestion to make to add to the draft that was on the anvil.”

But when the Left decided it did not wish to wait till then and announced on the 8th that it was withdrawing support, “the necessity of waiting did not exist.”

Asked why the government had initialled the text on July 7, which was before the Left had withdrawn support, Mr. Narayanan replied, “Who said we had initialled the draft on the 7th?” When told that Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar, who was also present at the press conference along with his Department of Atomic Energy colleague R.B. Grover and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, had said so earlier, Mr. Menon stepped in to say that initialling was merely a procedural matter.

“Just to make it clear, a negotiator initials a document in token of that being the document that he has finalised. A document is initialled by both the negotiators to prove that this is the document they have agreed. That’s all it constitutes.” Mr. Narayanan added: “Our commitment was not [linked to] withdrawal of support but that we will wait till the last meeting was held in case the Left has something to say. Since they said they had nothing further to say, there was no point in waiting.”

He reiterated that the formal declaration that India was going ahead to the IAEA Board was made on July 8. “The formal letter to the Board, signed by the Indian member of the Board, was sent [that] evening, after the Left had already announced [its stand]. That’s where the matter is.”

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