Indo-US Nuclear-deal: Congress greets 'breakthrough' with caution

Congress reacted cautiously to the "breakthrough" in the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement on Sunday, saying it would have to see the fine print on whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi has addressed issues raised by the US within India's legal framework and sought details as to how the difficulties were overcome.

The party also sought to take credit for having initiated the deal when it was leading the government at the Centre at a time when BJP had opposed the move tooth and nail. "It is just a continuation of what has been happening. The two countries have a strategic partnership embracing all sensitive areas including space, nuclear science and defence. "Now we have to read the fine print whether the US President has addressed the Indian concerns, whether our Prime Minister has addressed the issues raised by US within our legal framework," said Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma.

His colleague Salman Khurshid said, "It is a breakthrough, we can hardly complain about it. After all, this is a story that we began." Noting that the previous UPA dispensation was keen to take the deal forward, Khurshid said that it was BJP which had very aggressively and vociferously opposed the agreement at the time "almost to the point of bringing the government down".

"If they have come to the path of sanity and they followed the Congress and UPA way of thinking, how have they overcome these difficulties which prevented this agreement to fructify over the last few years? "That is something they should share with us, with our leadership, Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, who were all deeply involved in giving impetus to this movement," he said. Sharma also noted that it was their government which was keen that the deal be taken forward for operationalisation, but there were certain issues raised by the US and there were certain concerns India had aired in that regard.