Persisting with efforts to convince the Left parties, the government is likely to field Atomic Energy Commission chief Anil Kakodkar and other senior officials involved in the Indo-US nuclear deal negotiations to brief Left leaders on the contents of India-specific safeguards pact with the IAEA.
According to a senior government functionary, the move to let the experts explain details of the safeguards agreement with the IAEA is being considered in the backdrop of Left contention that they are still unclear about the text of the agreement. A joint statement issued by the Left parties on Wednesday had said that they had ??not been able to form any opinion on the text of the safeguards agreement?? as the text has not been made available to the UPA-Left committee.
Government managers pointed out that while the government could not reveal the text of the agreement until it had been presented to the board of governors at the IAEA, it had prepared a summary of the IAEA negotiations and had told Left parties about it. ??Since we are bound not to show the text of the agreement, one of the options is to let the AEC chairman and his colleagues to adequately brief the Left leaders,?? a senior functionary said.
The UPA wants Left parties to delink the safeguards pact from the 123 deal, with the argument that the agreement with the IAEA, which is the best possible that it could get, would be equally applicable to nuclear agreement with countries like Russia or Australia.