US legislation on N-deal unacceptable, says BJP

The BJP today declared that the Indo-US nuclear deal as cleared by the US Congress and Senate was unacceptable to it, setting the stage for fireworks during the next week's Parliament sittings. It has demanded that the government reject the Bill.

A joint statement by former external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha and BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley states that the provisions of the Bill cleared in the US flies in the face of assurances given by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Parliament from time to time.

"The final product, for which the PM asked us to wait, is before us. The US administration is bound to ensure that the bilateral 123 agreement, the IAEA safeguard agreement, the Additional Protocol and the NSG 'consensus' on the deal will have to be in line with the Act of the US Congress," said the statement.

"The PM, therefore, cannot tell us to wait for yet another final product," it added.

According to the BJP, the Bill, now an Act, "militates against full civil nuclear co-operation with India, the certification and reporting requirements continue to be rigorous, and there is no assurance of uninterrupted fuel supplies even for our civilian reactors."

It further states that, "in fact, the provision is to the contrary, India cannot reprocess the used fuel nor can it ship it back to the US unless the US Congress approves the reshipment."

The statement also points out that "the moratorium on the production of fissile material remains a key US objective. India has been expressly forbidden from nuclear testing in future, even of the kind permitted by the CTBT."