N-deal: UPA, Left to hang on till April meet

The UPA government got a few weeks of respite on the nuclear issue on Monday as the Left parties agreed to get back after going through the paper handed over to them which provides a summary of the safeguards agreement with the IAEA.

With both sides seemingly wanting to buy time rather than going for a confrontation on the issue, the much-awaited meeting of the UPA-Left committee ended with the decision to meet again next month. The hour-long meeting, in which a ?gist? of the safeguards agreement was circulated, also saw government managers assuring Left members that all concerns raised by them had been met.

In response to queries from some of the Left members, the government also said that they were trying to renegotiate the timeline with the US. CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat subsequently told the panel that it would get back to the government with its viewpoint in April. Left sources did not rule out the possibility of a note from their side.

The uncertainty and inconclusiveness, which has characterised the engagement between the two sides on the issue was summed up by a cryptic three-line statement issued after the meeting here, which revealed very little.

?The outcome of the negotiations between India and the IAEA on India specific safeguards agreement was presented to the members of the committee? it said. ?The members of the committee felt that further discussions were needed. It was decided to hold the next meeting of the committee in April 2008?.

Sources said the talks were inconclusive as the Left members did not want to take a position before consulting their own experts on the safeguards agreement. While circulating the ?gist? prepared by the government, panel chairperson Pranab Mukherjee told the Left members that it could not share the actual text of the safeguards agreement as it would be violative of the agreement with the IAEA secretariat.

Mukherjee read out the ?gist? to members while telling them that Indian negotiators had been able to get the best possible agreement with the IAEA following negotiations over three months. Kapil Sibal as well as P Chidambaram later amplified the points of the safegaurds agreement. The meeting, the seventh one, so far had all 15 members participating.

At the last meeting on

November 17, the Left parties had allowed the Government to hold negotiations with the IAEA on the safeguards agreement, but in between had been issuing threats of dire consequences if the government went ahead with the deal.

Last week, CPI general secretary AB Bardhan had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh threatening withdrawal of support if the deal with the US was implemented.