NEW DELHI, 23 October 2007 — The troubled Indian government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday decided to put on hold for some more time the controversial nuclear deal with the United States. Members of the ruling coalition met yesterday but the talks remained inconclusive, sources said.
After yesterday’s talks the government said it would hold off on implementing the nuclear deal with the United States after again failing to win over skeptical coalition partners.
After another round of talks with its wavering left-wing allies, officials from the dominant Congress party said the atomic energy pact would be shelved for another four weeks.
Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters that the accord would not be “operationalized” before Nov. 16, when more talks are planned.
The Congress party of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appeared to buckle last week under opposition from its leftist allies, who had threatened to withdraw their support and force early elections if the pact went ahead.
“The committee continued its deliberations in a constructive and cordial atmosphere,” Pranab said after the meeting between the government and its allies in Parliament.
In a separate coalition meeting, Manmohan was also said to have conveyed to the government’s allies his disappointment over opposition to the accord, the NDTV news network said, quoting unnamed sources.
The prime minister has argued the accord, which would bring India into the loop of global atomic energy commerce, would help meet the future energy needs of an economy steaming along with an annual growth rate of nine percent.
But the communists say the deal, which would involve India being subjected to more international safeguards including inspections, could harm the country’s nuclear weapons program.
They are also opposed to closer political and strategic ties with Washington.
Ahead of the talks, the deputy head of the Communist Party of India, D. Raja, told AFP that left-wing parties would be pushing for the government “to state its position clearly, to tell us whether the nuclear deal is on hold or not.”
A senior official from the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which also props up the government in Parliament, Sitaram Yechury, told reporters that the left would review its position after yesterday’s talks.
He said the government needed to make clear “how it wishes to proceed and on that basis, we will take our future decisions.” The Congress party has been giving conflicting signals over the future of the deal over the past week, and the latest delay means that the future of the accord is still uncertain.
Last week Manmohan told US President George W. Bush that New Delhi was having trouble implementing the deal due to leftist opposition, and went on to admit that “one has to take certain disappointments.”
But once the deal was being described as dead, Manmohan said he was still hopeful of a compromise.
According to political analyst Neerja Chowdhury, there could be three explanations for the prime minister’s seemingly contradictory statements.
