“We are engaged in serious discussions with them on the subject,” he said in an interview with Karan Thapar for CNBC’s ‘India Tonight’ programme to be telecast on Monday night.

Mukherjee said UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had appointed a small group to work on Left’s issues with the nuclear deal, “but we have not been able to completely iron out the differences”.

The minister said the Government was at present holding discussions with  the IAEA to finalise the India-specific safeguards agreement as per the decision taken in the last meeting between UPA-Left Coordination Committee on October 16 last year.

After being shown the agreed test, Mukherjee said, the UPA-Left coordination committee would decide the future course of action vis-a-vis the nuclear deal. “We are aware of the position stated by various Left parties on the issue from time to time. Despite that, we are talking to each other,” he said.

The minister refused comment on a statement of Forward Bloc General Secretary Debabrata Biswas that the Left had given the government a go ahead to hold talks with IAEA only to have an “honourable exit” from the nuclear deal.
“Various interpretations have been coming and I am not going to comment on those,” he asserted.