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Committee to review Indian left's objections to US nuke deal
New Delhi (AFP) Sept 4, 2007 India's foreign minister will head a committee set up by the Congress party-led government to review objections by communist allies to a controversial nuclear deal with the US, reports said Tuesday. The pact seeks to bring India into the loop of global atomic commerce after a gap of three decades, but the leftist parties, which oppose strategic ties with Washington, say the nuclear agreement threatens India's sovereignty. Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee will head the 15-member committee, which will have six members from the government, six from the left and three from other allied parties, a Press Trust of India agency report said. From the government, die-hard defenders of the nuclear deal Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal, India's science and technology minister, will be on the panel, Indian news channel CNN-IBN said. Senior communist leaders Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury, who have been equally vocal in their opposition to the deal -- and to India's ever-closer ties with the United States -- will also be on the committee, it said. Left parties have asked the government not to begin safeguards negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the next step towards implementing the deal, until their objections are addressed. Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), repeated his opposition to the deal Tuesday, PTI said. "If the nuclear deal is through, it will break our foreign policy of 60 years," said Karat, as he flagged off an anti-American protest directed at five-nation naval games in the Bay of Bengal that will see a heavy US presence. Ships from Australia, Japan and Singapore will also take part in the joint exercises with India's navy this week. "We are not against the people of America or against America as a country. We are against the imperialistic America," he said. The government has hinted the talks with the watchdog, earlier expected to begin this month, could be delayed. "The deal is not likely to be operationalised this year," said science minister Sibal, one of India's pivotal negotiators with the United States. "The time-table we have in mind now is sometime in the latter half of next year." But left has said it has no objection to the government holding talks to press for the support of members of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, which oversees the sale of nuclear fuel and technology between nations. Parliament is also expected to hold a full debate on the deal later this month. Related Links Nuclear Power News - Nuclear Science, Nuclear Technology Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com
Six groups shortlisted for Bulgarian nuclear plant partnership
Milan (AFP) Sept 4, 2007Six companies have been shortlisted to take part in a joint venture to build a 7.0-billion-euro (9.5-billion-dollar) nuclear power plant in Bulgaria, Italian press reports said on Tuesday. |
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