Yechury wants Indo-US defence pact contents to be made public

 Terming the recent defence cooperation agreement signed between India and the US as “dangerous”, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Tuesday demanded that the Centre immediately make its contents public
Yechury also wanted the government to take the opinion of Parliament before going further.

“Recently India signed another defence agreement with the US. This, in our opinion, is a very dangerous pact because  the content of the earlier logistics agreement was also unknown to us. And even this deal... we do not know what it contains,” Yechury told reporters.

“But what the US has announced is that India is a defence partner, which means now we are as good as the members of the Nato. And we will be completely cooperating with all the military adventures that the US and its imperialism will undertake in the world,” Yechury said.

‘Open to scrutiny’

Indian defence forces and defence production would be “open to scrutiny” and “control” by the US which will make India its “junior ally” following finalisation of the ‘Major Defence Partner’ designation, the CPM has alleged.

Noting that the US has placed the details of ‘Major Defence Partner’ designation for Senate approval as part of FY 2017 National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA), the CPM said the Narendra Modi government “has not even made a statement in Parliament about such a significant deal.”