‘Won’t allow pact with IAEA till US has a new president’

If the UPA government wants to finalise operationalising the safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which is key to the Indo-US nuclear deal, it will have to wait until the US presidential polls get over, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat told a party seminar here on Tuesday.

Karat said the CPM would not allow the UPA government to push the issue earlier than that and India should not ink the nuclear deal until a new US regime is in place. “We are now in the final stages of struggle against the nuclear pact,” Karat said, affirming that there needs to be an “open discussion” involving Russia, Britain and France after January next year when the US has a new president in office. This, he maintained, was because the CPM would not allow India to become a strategic ally of “imperialistic forces” by rushing through a “one-sided deal” with the US.

Meanwhile, Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar on Tuesday expressed optimism about clinching an agreement with the IAEA and implementation of the nuclear deal.

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“I always work in a positive way. If everything works out, we will do it,” he told reporters in New Delhi when asked whether the talks with the IAEA were going on as planned and would be completed in good time to have the deal with the US.

Kakodkar, who initiated the talks for India-specific safeguards with the IAEA, said a lot of technical details need to be discussed step-by-step. “Talks are going on. Work is in progress,” he said.