Shedding tears for Iran, Karat tears into the PM

In a rare, direct attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat has said that ‘‘the prime minister is directly responsible’’ for India’s vote against Iran at the IAEA. Calling it the ‘‘final act of surrender’’ to the US position, Karat said that the CPM and other Left parties ‘‘cannot countenance this new direction in foreign policy.’’

In an article to be published in the next issue of the CPM organ People’s Democracy, Karat warns: ‘‘By the next Board meeting of the IAEA in November, the Indian government will have to undo the damage done. India should state clearly that the Iranian nuclear issue is not a fit case for referring to the UN Security Council.’’

Interestingly, almost throughout the piece, he refers to the government as the ‘‘Manmohan Singh government’’, a departure of sorts from ‘‘the government’’ or ‘‘India’’ that he has preferred to use in earlier articles.

Slamming the Indian position as hypocritical, he says that while India has asserted its right to conduct nuclear tests, it does not want another nuclear power in the region. He also points out that while India is not a signatory to the NPT, Iran is.

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