PM gears up to face Parliament on US nuke deal

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called upon the might of the nuclear establishment to help him prepare his defence of the Indo-US civil nuclear deal putting aside doubts of a set of scientists to deal with another day. A discussion in the Parliament on the deal is scheduled tomorrow.

Although Singh is likely to send a spirited message in favour of the deal, he will also remind lawmakers in India that what is being discussed right now is merely the enabling architecture for the elements of the deal, top sources said.

"What we're talking about is some empowerment to President George Bush to enable him to authorise the administration that they can enter into a deal with India. It is only after this that the actual negotiation will begin," the sources said.

"India has its parameters, the US has its own. We have our national interest, the US has its own. No free lunches are available. If we feel our parameters are not being met, we will negotiate till they are sorted out," they added.

The sources said the doubts and objections of Indian scientists could not be discounted. "Remember, these scientists belong to an era when denial was the norm of the day where the US was concerned. They had to experience situations where the US put national interest above contractual obligation. They helped build India's nuclear capability in the face of continual technology denial from the United States. They built the Param (supercomputer) without any help from anyone. So it is natural for these scientists to feel that if India could do it then, it can do it now."

This is likely to be the trend of the PM's speech tommorrrow. Today, he held about a two-hour discussion with Anil Kakodkar, Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission and R Chidambaram, Pricipal Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister, National Security Adviser M K Narayanan, PM's Principal Secretary T K A Nair and Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran. Chidambaram had earlier been AEC Chairman.

"This was a formal review meeting," Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma told reporters.

The Prime Minister, while pointing out that India's concerns have been conveyed to the US, has maintained that New Delhi will not accept any deviation from the 18 July 2005 understanding reached between him and President George W Bush.

New Delhi has indicated that it can opt out of the deal if the final US legislation on it does not reflect the spirit of July 18 statement.

Giving enough hints in this regard, the Prime Minister told Rajya Sabha on 27 July that "if the US legislative process leads to an end product which is not consistent with what we have committed, that would be the determining factor of what we can do with it."

Conceding that there are "elements (in the bills of the American House of Representatives and the Senate) which are of concern to us," Singh had said that "adequate representations have been made to the US government" in this regard and that he himself had taken up the issue with Bush.

"I have an assurance that the US administration will do all it can to say that the parameters, the goalposts of 18 July are not tampered with," he had said.

The scientists, while referring to the "historic" document signed by Singh and Bush last July, said on Monday that the US lawmakers, however, "have modified, both in letter and spirit, the implementation of such an agreement."

The scientists, including three former Chairmen of Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), said "we find that the Indo-US deal, in the form approved by the US House of Representatives, infringes on our independence for carrying out indigenous research and development in nuclear science and technology."

They cautioned that "if the US Congress, in its wisdom, passes the bill in the present form, the 'product' will become unacceptable to India, and diplomatically, it will be very difficult to change it later."