On Indo-US N-deal, Jaswant test for PM

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to have some explaining to do as the BJP brings up the Indo-US nuclear deal in Parliament, especially after the government has remained silent on Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Jaswant Singh’s nine-page letter written on April 14.

While there has been no reply, the letter created a flutter in the US. Former US ambassador to India Robert Blackwill flew in here in the last week of April to get a first-hand idea of the BJP stance. ‘‘I told him (Blackwill) that it is a dishonest agreement,’’ Singh disclosed to The Indian Express. The former External Affairs minister, who had conducted the strategic dialogue with the US during NDA regime, said the Prime Minister must clarify whether the agreement was about energy or about non-proliferation. While the Prime Minister emphasised that it was about energy, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the US House International Relations Committee that India is already discussing with the US its ‘‘potential participation in the proliferation security initiative’’.

The former minister pointed out that only nine per cent of India’s energy requirement could be met by nuclear resources and that for this, the deal mortgaged 90 per cent of the country’s nuclear programme.

On the unilateral moratorium on nuclear tests proposed during Atal Behari Vajpayee’s tenure as PM, Singh said: ‘‘Inherent in a unilateral moratorium is the right to reverse it’’.