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| PM statement on N-deal in RS on Thursday | | | NEW DELHI, AUG 16:
With the country's top scientists raising question marks on the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today held consultations with top scientists in the nuclear establishment ahead of a discussion in the Parliament tomorrow.
He is expected to send a clear cut message in Parliament that his government will not accept any tampering with the understanding on the agreement reached last year.
At the same time, Singh will also seek to convince critics that he has taken steps to nudge Washington to take into account New Delhi's apprehensions.
The Prime Minister, who is slated to make a statement in the Rajya Sabha tomorrow and the Lok Sabha later, held about two-hour-long discussions with Anil Kakodkar, Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission and R Chidambaram, Pricipal Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister. National Security Adviser M K Narayanan, PM's Principal Secretary T K A Nair and Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran. Chidambaram had earlier been AEC Chairman.
"This was a formal review meeting," Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma told reporters.
The meeting comes two days after the country's eight top nuclear scientists issued a joint statement raising concerns over the present form the bill in the US Congress saying it was important for Parliament to "work out, and insist on the ground rules for the nuclear deal at this stage itself".
The Prime Minister, while pointing out that India's concerns have been conveyed to the US, has maintained that New Delhi will not accept any deviation from the July 18, 2005 understanding reached between him and President George W Bush.
New Delhi has indicated that it can opt out of the deal if the final US legislation on it does not reflect the spirit of July 18 statement.
Giving enough hints in this regard, the Prime Minister told Rajya Sabha on July 27 that "if the US legislative process leads to an end product which is not consistent with what we have committed, that would be the determining factor of what we can do with it."
Conceding that there are "elements (in the bills of the American House of Representatives and the Senate) which are of concern to us", Singh has said that "adequate representations have been made to the US government" in this regard and that he himself had taken up the issue with Bush.
"I have an assurance that the US administration will do all it can to say that the paremeters, the goalposts of July 18 are not tampered with," he had said.
The scientists, while referring to the "historic" document signed by Singh and Bush last July, said on Monday that the US lawmakers, however, "have modified, both in letter and spirit, the implementation of such an agreement."
The scientists, including three former Chairmen of Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), said "We find that the Indo-US deal, in the form approved by the US House of Representatives, infringes on our independence for carrying out indigenous research and development in nuclear science and technology."
They cautioned that "if the US Congress, in its wisdom, passes the bill in the present form, the 'product' will become unacceptable to India, and diplomatically, it will be very difficult to change it later".
Sharma said the Left allies of the government had been seeking a debate on nuclear issue in Parliament and the Prime Minister will clear doubts that anybody might have.
Debate and discussions are a part of normal democratic process and the government has no objection to discussing issues. |
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