The PM assured Members of Parliament that India would never agree to changes that was not in its national interest.
NEW DELHI: The India-US civil nuclear agreement is a major step forward for the country, and is the only foreign policy achievement of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the government has so far not been able to sell to the public.
Intervening in the two-day debate on the nuclear issue in Parliament the Prime Minister on Monday, tried to reassure members that the country’s weapons programme will not be placed under international scrutiny.
Singh said the “content and scope” of India’s strategic programme was not discussed with the US or any other country. “Our strategic programme will respond to our own decisions and not be subjected to any international scrutiny,” he said.
Acknowledging that India is not recognised as a nuclear weapons state, as it is defined in the NPT, the new arrangement would place India in a very special category: “But for all practical purposes we are there…with this status.”
He said till yesterday, India was looked as a pariah in the nuclear order. Today, the country has a place in it and there has been a complete makeover of the world view about India.
Saying he would be the last person to plead before the House that India’s foreign policy or its policy on Iran should be allowed to be decided at Washington or Europe. Singh pledged “I stand by that commitment.”
The deep suspicion of the US, a throwback to the decades of the Cold War when New Delhi and Washington were on opposite sides of the divide, has fuelled much uninformed criticism of the agreement.
The Prime Minister said that “difficult negotiations lie ahead” and the broad approach of India is on public record and guided by the assurances made by him to Parliament on several occasions.
He said international legislation on the nuclear issue was a complex process, but assured members that India would never agree to changes that was not in its national
interest.
But the Prime Minister also conceded that there are areas of “concern” which will have to be discussed with the US while finalising the bilateral nuclear agreement. Singh said India, cannot accept any “new conditions” other than the commitments specified in the July 18 deal and the March 2 separation plan.
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