The Manmohan Singh government may have already secured much-needed endorsement from its wary Left allies, the Opposition NDA and a skeptical scientific community for the eight-day old final draft text of the Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement.
And, the credit for softening up the doubters goes to Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chairman Dr Anil Kakodkar, who as a scientist carries a lot of credibility.
Dr Kakodkar’s endorsement of the final draft was advertised by the government as it embarked upon the challenge of hard-selling the deal to Left partners, the BJP-led NDA and leading nuclear scientists.
Left, NDA satisfied?
“It is our impression that they (the Left parties and NDA) are quite satisfied” with the deal and “Dr Kakodkar’s presence (in briefings to Left and NDA leaders) was very helpful” in satisfying them, National Security Adviser M K Narayanan told a press conference here on Friday. Dr Kakodkar and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon were also present.
Dr Kakodkar, who had misgivings about certain key aspects of the deal last year when the US Congress was in the process of making an enabling legislation for the purpose, gave an unconditional endorsement for the deal during the course of the hour-long press conference in which most of the talking was otherwise done by Mr Narayanan and Mr Menon.
As he might have done at the briefings to Left and BJP leaders on Wednesday and Thursday, Dr Kakodkar, while responding to questions, categorically said the deal was fully “consistent” with what India sought to achieve under the July 18, 2005 Joint Statement by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and US President George W Bush and the Separation Plan announced by the two leaders on March 2, 2006.
The final draft text would help India to take its nuclear energy programme forward. It grants advance rights to India to reprocess spent fuel in a safeguarded national facility and does in no way “interfere” with the country’s independent nuclear weapons programme or the three-stage nuclear development programme, he reassured.
Meanwhile the AEC on Friday endorsed the 123 agreement, according to AEC sources.
