Left parties hold joint meeting on nuclear deal

New Delhi, Aug 29 (UNI) The Left parties today indicated that their stand-off with the UPA Government over the Indo-US nuclear deal was easing.

A joint meeting of the Left parties was held here this evening at which senior leaders briefed the participants on the discussions the UPA Government had held separately with each of the Left parties.

Later, talking to reporters, CPI General secretary A B Bardhan and Forward Bloc General Secretary Debabrat Biswas said the Left parties were agreeable to the constitution of a political mechanism to review the implications of the implementation of the Hyde Act provided the government did not go ahead with operationalising the controversial deal.

They indicated that their discussions with government leaders had given them to understand that nothing would be done by the government to operationalise the deal until the proposed political mechanism gave its report.

Besides Mr Bardhan and Mr Biswas, the meeting was attended by CPI(M) leaders Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechuri, Mr D Raja (CPI) and Mr G Devrajan (Foward Bloc).

Meanwhile, sources indicated that they did not see any possibility of India taking up the nuclear deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) when Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Chairman Anil Kakodkar travels to Vienna for the annual general meeting of the IAEA next month.

UNI