Nuke Row: No talks at IAEA, CPM tells govtBS Reporter / New Delhi August 21, 2007Keeping up its efforts to prevent the government from moving ahead on the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, the CPI(M) today imposed conditions on India's participation at the annual general conference of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meet in Vienna next month. CPM politburo member Sitaram Yechuri met External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and told him that Anil Kakodkar, chairman of Atomic Energy Commission and India's representative at the IAEA, could attend the conference but must not hold talks on the nuclear deal during his visit. "We have no objections to Kakodkar's visit to IAEA, but he should not start the negotiation process there. We fully understand that India is a part of the governing body of IAEA and we should participate, but this should not be used as a platform to start negotiations on India-specific safeguards," Yechuri told reporters in Parliament. The government also sought to play down Kakodkar's visit to Vienna. Mukherjee said: "This is a scheduled meeting and has nothing to do with the Indo-US nuclear deal." Kakodkar, however, is supposed to hold informal talks at the sidelines of the meet on India-specific nuclear safeguards, according to sources.Mukherjee and Yechuri held an hour-long meeting today. Later, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi and CPI(M) leader in Lok Sabha Basudeb Achariya joined them. There was no breakthrough on the issue of either mechanism or IAEA talks. Yechuri said: "We have our politburo resolution. We stick to that. We don't change our stand every hour." CPI(M) also refuted the suggestion that a panel to study the implications of Hyde Act was its idea - on the contrary, the party said it was a wholly government proposal and they don
