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Don’t operationalise nuclear deal: Karat

Gargi Parsai

“It’s still not late; Centre can reconsider”

NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Monday asked the government not to operationalise the India-U.S. nuclear agreement as the Bill, passed by the American House of Representatives not only incorporated Hyde Act provisions but also added other conditionalities.

“You have a new version of the Hyde Act and new attachments to it. The best thing for the government should have been not to have operationalised the deal. It is still not late and the government can reconsider. It can say [to the U.S.] that there are provisions in the Bill that go against what we had agreed to in our pact,” CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said during an interaction with members of the Indian Women’s Press Corps here.

Asked whether he, with hindsight, felt that the Left parties should not have agreed to the government going to the International Atomic Energy Agency for the safeguards agreement, Mr. Karat said the situation would have been the same because it was too soon after the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls and they were aware that the Congress was in touch with the Samajwadi Party.

“We went by the assurance of the topmost leadership who said it was the question of the country’s credibility. The understanding was that they won’t go beyond the IAEA. Obviously, they had no intention of pursuing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s commitment to bring it to Parliament for approval. Parliament has had no opportunity to express itself on this.”

Disagreeing with the view that the July 22 trust vote sought by the United Progressive Alliance government was a referendum on the nuclear deal, Mr. Karat said India did not go to the IAEA till then.

Asked whether he saw any merit in the deal, he said his party was not against civil nuclear cooperation with any country including the U.S. “Our problem is with the nuclear agreement as an American passport to which all future administrations would be bound. We should have tried for multilateral efforts with Russia, France and others.”

China’s stand

On the initial opposition to the deal by China and Pakistan, Mr. Karat said China being a nuclear weapon state, P-5 member and signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty had its own priorities.

“We knew China would go along. They have their own equation with the U.S. But our position was that we won’t support it.”

The CPI(M) leader said, “In general and abstract terms” his party was against nuclear weapons. “You should work seriously for nuclear disarmament. But we won’t agree to anyone circumscribing our sovereign right to decide.”

Mr. Karat said the Left parties had not thought that they would have a misunderstanding with the UPA government — which they supported for over four years — on a foreign policy issue. “There were several drafts on the foreign policy for the Common Minimum Programme and the nuclear deal was not part of it.”

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