JPC must examine the text of 123 agreement: BJP

New Delhi, Aug 4: The BJP today rejected the 123 nuclear agreement between India and the United States, describing it as an assault on India's nuclear sovereignty and foreign policy options, and demanded setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to examine the text of the Agreement.

In an eight-page preliminary reaction, formalised at a meeting of senior BJP leaders at former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's residence last night, the party said until the JPC report was presented to Parliament and approved no further action like signing of the deal, be made.

The party called for appropriate amendments to be made in the Constitution and laws to ensure that all agreements which affect the country's sovereignty, territorial integrity and national security be ratified by Parliament.

Addressing newspersons, former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha and former Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie said the BJP had been expressing its reservations regarding the Indo-US nuclear deal from the very beginning and their apprehensions had come true and "BJP rejects it." Both charged the UPA Government with "disinformation campaign" over the deal as if all that India wanted had been taken care of in the Agreement. "There could not be bigger lie than this," they said.

Mr Sinha referred to Mr Vajpayee's comment on July 2005 Joint Statement issued by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George Bush in Washington in which the former Prime Minister had expressed his reservations about the deal, specially with regard to its impact on our strategic nuclear programme, separation plan of civilian and military nuclear facilities.

"When the separation plan was presented to Parliament, we expressed our opposition to it. We warned the Government of India when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House International Relations Committee of the US adopted the draft bills for enabling this cooperation between the two countries.

"Later we also protested when the Hyde Act was passed by the US Congress,"Mr Sinha said, adding that none of the "fears and apprehensions" expressed by the BJP had ever been given serious consideration by the Government which never thought of evolving a national consensus on this vital issue.

Observing that each party is required to implement the agreement in accordance with its national laws and regulations and its licence requirements, Mr Sinha said the agreement, therefore, would be governed by the provisions of the Hyde Act of 2006, the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and US licensing requirements relating to the supply of nuclear materials to India.

"The Agreement is Hyde act bound. Which act will India enforce on the US?'' he asked.

Besides, all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle are not covered under this agreement, he said.

The former External Affairs Minister said that as per Article 5(2) of the Agreement, sensitive nuclear technology, heavy water production technology, sensitive nuclear facilities and major critical components of such facilities can be transferred to India only after an amendment to this Agreement has been carried out.

"It is a peculiar arrangement," he said, adding that the provision of such transfer should have been included in this Agreement itself instead of leaving it to a future amendment.

Under the provision of article 5(2), the BJP feels that the US will retain the right of end-use verification of all its supplies and American inspectors will "roam around our nuclear installations." "This is totally unaccetable to the BJP," Mr Sinha asserted. He described as US commitment in regard to fuel supplies as ''vague and futuristic''. Article 5(6)(c) requires India to place its civilian nuclear facilities under safeguards in perpetuity and asking India to establish a new national reprocessing facility dedicated to reprocessing safeguarded nuclear material under IAEA safeguards clearly shows that there is no reciprocity in regarding to reprocessing facilities. No such facility has been created in the five Nuclear nations, he pointed out.

The party also cautioned that the US has retained the right to recall all the supplies made by it to India under the Agreement.

Similarly, there was nothing in the agreement regarding the reprocesing of the spent fuel of Tarapur which accumulated over the past 33 years, it said.

The party also termed as "untenable" that the agreement has no mention about the nuclear testing and reminded the government to look at it from the angle that it subjected to national laws, NPT, provisions of Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and the Hyde Act of 2006 which specifically forbid nuclear tests.

The BJP also pointed out that as per the separation plan, two third of India's reactors would be put in the civilian category under safeguards. As a result the recently refurbished CYRUS reactor will be shut down, and in course of time, 90 per cent of our reactors will be in the civilian category, it said.

UNI