PM to share Iran stand with Left

Left parties have been invited to a breakfast meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tomorrow.

There is usually no agenda at such meetings, but the surmise in Left circles is that the Prime Minister's Office has been shaken by the intensity of hostility following India's decision to vote against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting and has called the Left to explain the reasons for doing so and smoothen ruffled feathers.

The CPI(M) reacted with strong words against the IAEA move. In a release, the party had said the Singh government had "caved in to the US pressure" and had threatened that in November when the Iran issue would come up again in the IAEA, "India has to take a stand in consonance with an independent foreign policy and national interests."

"It should not endorse the blackmail by the nuclear haves' and should oppose any discriminatory treatment to Iran," the CPI(M) said. The party had warned of a countrywide campaign to compel the Singh government to take such a stand.

Why Left parties are angry with thegovernment is not hard to understand. "Till the eve of the vote in the IAEA, the Indian government had maintained that the Iran issue should be dealt with within the IAEA framework and decisions have to be taken by consensus."

"India had also recognised the right of Iran to develop its nuclear technology under international safeguards as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," the party said. But the Indo-US defence and nuclear agreements had circumscribed the government, converting India virtually into an ally of the US, it said.

"The government has caved in under the US threat that it has to choose where it stands""with the US or Iran""and the blunt message that the nuclear co-operation pact will not be ratified by the US Congress if India takes an independent stand," it said.

India's position, as articulated by Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, was that India had, leveraging its past association with Iran, secured from Tehran, some months ago, a promise that it would suspend further reprocessing of uranium.

Using the same leverage, India was successful in persuading the "European Union-3" not to refer Iran immediately to the UN Security Council and allow time for discussions.

"Having got them (the EU-3) to agree to what we wanted, then to say we will only abstain on the resolution would not have been the correct position for us to take," Saran said yesterday.

India's decision to vote with the EU-3 ""Germany, France and Britain"" and the US, threatens to fracture the traditional bipartisan consensus on foreign policy that Indian politics has seen. It is unlikely that the Left will be placated by the Prime Minister on this issue.