Natwar to make statement in Parliament

In a damage-control exercise, External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh has decided to make a suo motu statement in Parliament on allegations that he was a beneficiary in Iraqi oil deals during Saddam Hussein's rule as claimed in a UN report.

Singh claimed that the report, authored by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, was baseless.

"I am not going to speak on the issue through the media. I will make a suo motu statement when Parliament meets (later this month)," he said. Singh drew attention to the fact that Russia, some of whose top-level functionaries figured in the Volcker report, had also said many documents referred to in the report were dubious.

He said his Russian counterpart Sergei Iavrov had been quoted as saying, "In a number of instances, the commission presented Russia with rather dubious or falsified documents concerning Moscow's participation in the oil-for-food programme."

Expressing outrage over the report, he said it was part of a campaign to malign the Congress and its senior leaders.

"My record in public life for the past 50 years and more has been an open book. My personal integrity has never been questioned," he said.

He added that nobody from the panel had questioned him anything before reaching a conclusion. The report names him and the Congress party as 'non-contractual beneficiaries' in the oil deals. Singh said that naming him and the Congress party was a conspiracy to malign those opposed to the US led war in Iraq.

Singh has made it clear that he was not against a probe but wanted to know what could be investigated in the absence of any evidence.

The BJP had demanded that Singh should resign immediately. The minister has emphatically stated that his son, Jagat Singh, also had nothing to do with this affair.

Backing the minister, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had on Sunday said that there was 'insufficient' material to arrive at any adverse conclusion against the external affairs minister.