Political parties to get draft of N-pact today

Political managers of all formations barring the United National People's Alliance (the so-called Third Front) will have to burn the midnight oil this weekend.

The government is likely to make available to political parties on Friday, the draft of the 123 Agreement that will operationalise the Indo-US civil nuclear co-operation treaty.

Both Left parties have expressed no major disagreement with the text so far, keeping their powder dry till they have gone through the fine print.

The UNPA has rejected the agreement as a sell-out without even having seen the text and has thus spared itself the trouble of reading it too carefully.

And after National Security Advisor MK Narayanan called on former Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani today, the BJP re-read the notes of its meeting with the prime minister, NSA and foreign secretary earlier this week, aiming to blast holes into the negotiation.

CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan told Business Standard: "We may still have some objections about this deal. We have asked the government to give us the copy of the draft agreement. We are expecting to get it by Friday morning. We have to go through the draft and read between the lines. The Left parties will meet on this issue on August 7 and discuss it. The government has informed us that discussions in Parliament could take place on August 13 or 14."

Bardhan said the primary concern of the Left parties will be whether the deal, in any way, circumvents India's sovereignty, strategic autonomy and the country's indigenous nuclear programme.

The CPI(M)'s stated position is that the agreement should conform to the PM's statement in Parliament on August 17, 2006 and that it should not in any way agree with those provisions of the Hyde Act that are contrary to India's interests.

This will also be part of the BJP's argument to sink the deal. It is likely to say that not only is the negotiation a sell-out to the US but that it will curtail India's nuclear options.

Those who are working on the draft of the PM's reply to Parliament say none of the objections hold water. The PM, they say, is likely to cite Vajpayee's own speech when the nuclear tests were first conducted in May 1998, offering not only a voluntary moratorium and refraining from conducting underground nuclear tests, but also the "willingness to move towards a de-jure formalisation of this declaration".

This means, the PM is likely to say that the BJP had offered curtailment of India's sovereign right to test again without even being asked for it.

The PM is also likely to argue that not conducting another nuclear test is no compromise: this is the situation that obtains today. He will also point to the endorsement of the agreement by the Indian scientific community.

He will recall the kind of insecurities India has had to live with on account of its dependence on nuclear fuel supply from the US and explain how these will not arise now.

That while having a nuclear weapon India will have made the rest of the world acknowledge that it should have the same rights as the Permanent Five without having signed the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, is no mean achievement of diplomacy, the PM is likely to say.

Manmohan will also underline the fact that not even with Japan does the US have a nuclear treaty like the one it has negotiated with India.