PM's statement on 123 Agreement is a bunch of lies: BJP

New Delhi, Aug 13 (UNI) The BJP today described Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement on the Indo-US Nuclear deal as a ''bundle of the same untruths, half truths and pure white lies'' and reiterated that it would continue to oppose the deal in and outside Parliament.

The Prime Minister has reduced Parliament to a farce by stating that the deal is signed, and sealed and could not be renegotiated, making a mockery of the debate on the issue, the party charged.

Addressing the media, former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha and former Union Minister Arun Shourie asked the Prime Minister ''If the deal is signed and sealed and etched in stone, why does he want Parliament to go through the charade of a debate on it?'' Never before had Parliament been treated in such a ''cavalier fashion'', they alleged.

The Prime Minister in his eight-page statement, they said, has conveniently ignored the sequence of legislative action in the United States and pretended as if the Hyde Act does not exist. ''This is nothing but an ostrich-like attitude.'' They also accused Dr Singh of ''clearly misleading the nation'' by not revealing that the agreement was silent on issues like annual certification by the US President and that India's right to conduct nuclear tests would be governed by the provisions of the Hyde Act, passed by the US Congress in December 2006.

The BJP leaders reiterated that the placing of indigenous fast breeder reactors under the safeguards of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was an entirely ''unncessary commitment'' made by the UPA government in the separation plan. ''Such a commitment will have an impact on India's three-stage nuclear programme as also on her research and development programme,'' they said.

UNI