People's Democracy

LEFT ON IAEA SAFEGUARDS AGREEMENT

Do Not Proceed Further

The Left parties held a meeting on June 18, 2008. They have issued the following statement jointly signed by Prakash Karat [CPI(M) general secretary], A B Bardhan [CPI general secretary], Debabrata Biswas [AIFB general secretary] and T J Chandrachoodan [RSP general secretary]:

THE Left parties have steadfastly opposed the 123 agreement for civilian nuclear cooperation with the United States. The UPA-Left committee on India-US civil nuclear cooperation was constituted to discuss the problems arising out of the provisions of the Hyde Act and its impact on the 123 agreement.

Subsequently, the committee decided that the impact of the provisions of the Hyde Act and the 123 agreement on the IAEA safeguards agreement should also be examined.

Hence at the sixth meeting of the UPA-Left committee held on November 16, 2007 it was decided that talks with the IAEA secretariat would be held for working out the text of the safeguards agreement. Thereafter, the outcome of the talks will be presented to the committee for its consideration before it finalises its findings. The findings of the committee will have to be taken into account before proceeding further.

In the seventh and eighth sessions of the UPA-Left committee in March and May 2008, some of the features of the text were discussed. However, the text has not been made available to the committee. As far as the Left parties are concerned, they have not been able to form any opinion on the text of the safeguards agreement. Neither has the committee arrived at its findings.

In such a situation, the Left parties are of the firm opinion that the government should not proceed to seek approval of the text of the India specific safeguards agreement from the Board of Governors of the IAEA.