External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat held informal discussions at Mukherjee's residence tonight, ahead of the crucial meeting of the UPA-Left committee on the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement on June 18.
Political circles say this behind-the-scenes diplomacy between the two key players is the last chance to salvage the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement.
Although bureaucrats in the US have described the nuclear agreement as "almost dead", the government is anxious to sign the safeguards agreement with the IAEA so that the chances of signing similar deals with countries like Russia and France are not closed forever.
A top government official told Business Standard: "We need to have the safeguards agreements in place before the current Director General of IAEA, Muhammad El Baradei, quits office in July. In the next regime, it may become impossible to extract these concessions from IAEA."
For the government to get the IAEA safeguards agreement by July, Karat needs to be convinced that this will not be used unilaterally for the 123 Agreement with the US. The late night meeting, which lasted for about an hour, could be a clincher in this respect.
Meanwhile, the Congress today dismissed the CPI(M)'s charge that the government was compromising the country's strategic autonomy by pursuing the Indo-US nuclear deal. "I do not think the UPA government would ever compromise India's strategic autonomy in any manner," party spokesperson Manish Tiwari told reporters.
