BJP comes out against N-deal

AS THE top rung of the government on Thursday engaged the Nicholas Burns-led US team in negotations on the “semantics” of the 123 agreement, domestic opposition was building against the agreement. BJP leader and former external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha, who led the NDA’s charge, warned the government against surrendering the nuclear option and foreign policy to the US.

Mr Sinha, who suspected that the government would agree on a draft that means one thing to India and a different thing to the US, said there could be major complications in the future. “The intrusive promises of the Hyde Act will make it impossible for India to conform with its requirements. The implementation of this Bill will lead to enormous misunderstanding between India and the US. It will sour our future bilateral relations. In the interest of our bilateral relations, this unequal agreement should not be signed,” Mr Sinha said.

The former minister said his apprehensions stem from the fact that the Hyde Act went against the commitments that the prime minister gave to Parliament. The assertions of the US officials also suggest that the attempt was to bring India under the nuclear non-proliferation umbrella, which was set up to contain India after the 1974 tests. “We have a blemish-free non-proliferation track record. Despite the fact that the Americans reneged on the Tarapore treaty, we did not reprocess the spent fuel. Several governments came after that. But all of them ensured that we maintain a clean non-proliferation record,” he said.

Meanwhile, ahead of the talks, Mr Burns said that India and the US were “nearly there” on an agreement to take forward the nuclear deal that would end India’s nuclear isolation. “We’re nearly there,” Mr Burns, the US under secretary of state for political affairs, told reporters as he arrived at South Block in Delhi for technical-level talks. “This (the nuclear deal) represents the most ambitious US proposal in 30 years. It will deliver India from nuclear isolation,” he maintained.