UPA-Left's crucial meet on nuclear deal begins

{image-upa-left new nuke deal_25062008.jpg news.oneindia.in}New Delhi, June 25: The crucial meeting of the UPA-Left Coordination Committee to iron out differences on the Indo-US civil nuclear deal has begun in New Delhi.

Congress sources said that the government is expected to make it clear that it wants to go to IAEA for the safeguards agreement and will like to persuade the Left on the move. It is also likely to assure the Left that it will come back to the committee before going to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the sources said. Earlier, leaders of Left parties met to devise a strategy over the Indo-US nuclear deal issue ahead of the ongoing UPA-Left committee meeting. CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat, CPI's A.B. Bardhan, D. Raja and T.J. Chandrachud, and Forward Bloc's Debabrata Biswas and G. Devarajan were among those present. The Left parties had already rejected a compromise formula which would have allowed the government to finalise the safeguards agreement at the IAEA. Sources said the Left parties dismissed the formula as "meaningless" as they maintained that the safeguards agreement would be on auto-pilot for progress on the deal immediately after the IAEA Board of Governors approved it.

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