No U-turn, it’s only a face-saver for PM: Left

NEW DELHI: Senior Left leaders on Wednesday denied that they have taken a “U-turn” on the India-US nuclear agreement and clarified that their decision to allow the UPA government to approach the IAEA for India-specific safeguard talks was only to save Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from embarrassment before the international community.

The PM got a boost on Wednesday when former service chiefs, bureaucrats and top scientists wrote an open letter to MPs backing the nuke deal on the eve of winter session of Parliament commencing Thursday. A debate on the contentious deal may materialise if the UPA and the NDA agree.

Insisting the Left won’t allow operationalisation of the deal, a CPI(M) leader said “negotiations with the IAEA can be prolonged. It took the government five to six months to negotiate the deal. Now since we are allowing IAEA talks, nobody can blame the PM.”

Blasting the media for conveying the impression that “the Left took a U-turn”, he said, “in practical terms we have not given any sense of relief, but just an exit route to Manmohan Singh.”  “We have allowed the government to discuss safeguards (at IAEA), but not given a blank cheque,” said CPI leader in the Lok Sabha Gurudas Dasgupta.