Vajpayee to meet PM to discuss N-deal

NEW DELHI: Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is scheduled to meet prime minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday for consultations on the nuclear deal with the United States.

He will be accompanied by party leaders Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Rajnath Singh and Arun Shourie, party sources said.

Former deputy prime minister L K Advani will not be able attend the meeting as he is scheduled to fly to Singapore early  on Thursday to attend a Sindhi conference there, the sources said.

The government today approved the draft Indo-US nuclear cooperation agreement reached in Washington last week, saying "all concerns" of India have been "adequately addressed".

It gave its nod for the 123 agreement to operationalise the nuclear deal at a joint meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) and the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) chaired by the Prime Minister.

The BJP, which has been opposing the pact, has been demanding the government take the opposition into confidence on the progress in the agreement.

"Our concerns are yet to be addressed," party spokesman Prakash Javadekar said, citing Vajpayee's July 6 statement that no bilateral agreement with the US should be concluded on this issue till Parliament has had a chance to discuss it thoroughly.

"Once the nuclear deal comes into effect, the (US') Hyde Act will ensure that India loses forever its option of conducting a nuclear weapons test, even if any other country tests," Vajpayee had warned.