N-deal on hold, Committee to evaluate Left concerns

NEW DELHI: In a climbdown, the Government on Thursday put on hold the operationalisation of the Indo-US civil nuclear deal pending the findings of a committee constituted to go into the objections raised by the Left parties.

"The operationalisation of the deal will take into account the Committee's findings," a statement read out by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said after a meeting of the Congress and Left parties, bringing to an end the three-week stand-off between the two sides on the deal.

The meeting decided to set up a committee, the composition of which would be announced shortly.

Though Mukherjee did not take any questions after the 30-minute meeting at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's residence, the Left leaders said the statement makes it very clear that the Government will not operationalise the deal till the committee's findings are known.

Ever since the details of the 123 agreement were made public, the Left parties had demanded that the deal should not be operationalised while the government maintained that there was no going back on the issue.

Matters took a serious turn when Singh dared the Left parties to withdraw support to the government on the issue and they hit back warning of serious consequences if the government went ahead with the deal.

The statement by Mukherjee said in view of the objections raised by the Left parties on the Indo-US bilateral agreement on nuclear cooperation, it has been decided to constitute a committee to go into these issues.

The committee would look into "certain aspects of the agreement, the implications of the Hyde Act on the 123 agreement and self-reliance in the nuclear sector, the implications of the nuclear agreement on the foreign policy and security cooperation," the statement said.

"The committee will examine these issues," it said.

Asked whether there will be a timeframe for the committee to complete its task, Forward Bloc General Secretary Debabrata Biswas said "the committee will first have to be set up and then we can finalise the timeframe."

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Union Ministers Pranab Mukherjee and A K Antony besides Ahmed Patel were present from the Congress side. The Left parties were represented by Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M), A B Bardhan and D Raja (CPI) and Biswas.

Prior to the meeting, the Left leaders met among themselves to chalk out their strategy and the Core Group of the Congress also met to thrash out the issue.

Thursday's decision to set up a committee comes ahead of the debate on the nuclear issue in Parliament expected sometime next week.

Asked whether the crisis for the government is now over, Biswas said "we never said crisis is for the government but the country is in crisis."