Safegaurds text not in nation's interest : Left

New Delhi, Jul 11 (UNI) A day after seeking an explanation from the Prime Minister for his giving the green signal on the Indo-US Nuclear deal to the IAEA, Left parties today found several flaws in the text of the India-Specific Safegaurds with no guarantee of uninterrupted fuel supply and building the country's strategic reactors.

While describing the preamble to the text as a 'nice preamble', they said it, however, was not legally permissible and the same was not reflected in the body of the text.

At a press conference, CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat said after careful study and analysis of the text and discussing it with the experts, they had found that there was no mention of corrective measures in case if the US stop the fuel supply. ''You would not find the word uninterrupted supply in whole of the text,'' he said.

''Moreover, there is no use discussing the issue of uninterrupted supply with the IAEA as it is not its ambit. This has to be done by the US only,'' he said.

CPI(M) senior leader and polit buro member Sitaram Yechury said that it was unfortunate that there was no mention in the text about five of the nine assurances that were given by the Prime Minister on the floor of the House. Those included full civilian cooperation, reciprocity and India being non-signatory to the NPT. ''Moreover, the text does not recognise India as a nuclear weopen state,'' he added.

He stated that the Left parties did not oppose the Safegaurds Agreement perse but on the ground that it would pay way for the execution of the deal which was anchored in the Hyde Act that they had been opposing from the very beginning. ''Moreover, you cannot escape the perpetuity,'' he added.

On corrective measures, Mr Karat said those were vague and ineffective.

The Left leaders said the text made India binding in a sense that the IAEA Board of Governors decision was final and if India was held to be non-compliant, it could be referred to the Security Council for action including sanctions. ''The Iran case is an example,'' he noted.

They said it was clear that the IAEA Safegaurds Agreement did not address the fundamental problems in the Hyde Act and the 123 Agreement. As a result of operationalising the Indo-US nuclear deal, India will place its 14 costly imported reactors under perpetual IAEA Safegaurds and risk their permanent shutdown in case it failed to toe the US line on foreign policy issues. ''Thus, going ahead with the Safegaurd Agreement will be harmful to India's interests,'' he said.

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