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Bush assurance not worth anything: Karat

Special Correspondent

It lacks clarity over uninterrupted fuel supply, says BJP
Signing of deal is a result of mutual desperation: CPI

NEW DELHI: With India and the United States all set to operationalise the 123 agreement, the Left parties on Thursday said the assurance by President George Bush while signing it into the law was “not worth anything” while the Bharatiya Janata Party said the deal was against India’s interest.

“Clarifications given by [President] Bush while signing the Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement into law on fuel supply assurance and advance consent for reprocessing are not worth anything,” Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat said.

Reiterating that what had been enacted is a “Hyde plus Act,” Mr. Karat said the statement by President Bush was only a device to allay genuine fears over the agreement. He said the HR 7081 passed by the U.S. Congress would determine the implementation of the 123 agreement scheduled to be signed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and India’s External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee in Washington this weekend.

“Not in India’s interest”

He said the Manmohan Singh government was claiming that the Hyde Act would be overridden by the last Act passed by the U.S. Congress, which as per U.S. jurisprudence overrode earlier laws. “Now the last Act contains all the Hyde Act restrictions and they have been made more explicit,” Mr. Karat said.

The BJP said the agreement was against India’s interest as it still lacked clarity over uninterrupted fuel supply. Party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said even President Bush gave no assurance on uninterrupted fuel supply. It was obvious, he said, that if India conducted a nuclear test everything would “go with it.”

CPI national secretary D. Raja felt there was a wide gap in the understanding of the deal between India and the U.S. “While Washington considers the 123 agreement to be governed by the Hyde Act, Atomic Energy Act and other U.S. laws, New Delhi is of the view that only the 123 agreement was binding.”

He said the signing of the deal was a result of “mutual desperation,” since Prime Minister Singh wanted to show “some achievement” towards the end of his tenure, and President Bush, whose tenure also ends in four months, was desperate to help the military-industrial establishment at a time when the country was going through a mega financial crisis.

The economic cost of the deal was unknown but certainly it was going to be huge, Mr. Raja said, adding that the American nuclear companies were waiting for India to open up the market for their own revival.

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