Indo-US N-deal not to affect India's strategic prog

New Delhi, Dec 18: Allaying apprehensions over certain provisions of the new US law, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today assured the Lok Sabha that the Indo-US nuclear deal would not be allowed to affect India's strategic programme or development of fast breeder reactors.

The US administration had assured India that it would fully comply with its commitments in the July 18, 2005 and March 2, 2006 joint statements and India's separation plan, Dr Singh said while intervening in a discussion on the subject.

Whether this would materialise or not would very much depend on the 123 Agreement for formally launching bilateral cooperation in civilian nuclear energy. The negotiations on the agreement were yet to begin and ''you can judge us from the content of that agreement when the time comes,'' he said.

The legislation passed in the US Congress was merely aimed at enabling the US administration to negotiate with India and conclude the 123 Agreement, he explained and assured the House that nothing would be done at the back of Parliament.

Unlike the previous NDA government, which was holding secret talks with the then US Assistant Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, Dr Singh said he had taken the Parliament and the nation into confidence at every stage of negotiations.

The US law, which would enable waiver of the ban on supply of nuclear equipment and technology to India, had come despite the fact that New Delhi had a nuclear programme. It was true that India had not been recognised as a nuclear weapons state as defined in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). ''But for all practical purposes we are there'' with this status.

Not only the US, but several other countries, including Russia, France and the United Kingdom, were willing to recognise the reality that India was a nuclear weapon state, he said.

Declaring that he would be the last person to plead before the House that India's foreign policy should be allowed to be decided at Washington or Europe, Dr Singh said the country's weapons programme would not be subjected to any ''extraneous intrusive supervision'' from any country.

Elaborating on the previous NDA government's secret talks, he said the NDA did not have the courage to tell Parliament what they were discussing. The then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh had reportedly promised Mr Talbott that he would deliver India's signature on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) by a particular date.

It was unfortunate that NDA leaders valued the word of Mr Talbott more than his, the Prime Minister said.

Dr Singh said that India would ensure that the agreement with the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was in line with the national interest. India would find it difficult to accept conditions which were not mentioned in the two Indo-US joint statements, the finalisation of which did not involve any discussion over India's strategic programme, he said.

No legislation of a foreign country could impinge on India's sovereign right to chart out its own foreign policy, be it with Iran or any other country, he said.

Clarifications would be sought from the US on how it would honour its commitments despite some provisions in the new law passed by the US Congress which were of concern to India, he said.

In the 123 Agreement, India would not agree to anything that would affect its national interest, its strategic programme, the integrity of the three-stage nuclear programme and the indigenous research and development, including the fast breeder reactor, he said.

UNI

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