Date:08/10/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/10/08/stories/2007100856091200.htm

National

Pranab calls on Jyoti Basu

Special Correspondent

It is not known what transpired at the meeting
Buddhadeb, Biman Bose were present

KOLKATA: External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee had a meeting with veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu here on Sunday.

The meeting assumes significance in the wake of the stand-off between the United Progressive Alliance government and Left parties over the India-United States civilian nuclear deal.

West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and secretary of the State Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Biman Bose were present at the meeting in Mr. Basu’s residence.

Last week, Mr. Basu said his party would wait and see if the government had any “concessions” to offer in the course of talks between the UPA-Left committee, set up for the purpose of looking into objections raised by the Left parties to the 123 agreement, though there could be no “compromise” on the CPI (M)’s stand on it.

The meeting comes ahead of the next meeting of the UPA-Left committee, of which Mr. Mukherjee is the convener.

None of the leaders present disclosed what transpired at the meeting.

“The energy issue has become a focal point,” the Chief Minister said at a function elsewhere in the city. “We are asking the government that it should not go in for a strategic alliance with the United States…we are totally opposing such a strategic alliance that will hurt us economically, politically and militarily,” he said said.

Mr. Mukherjee spoke to Mr. Basu over phone from the United States on September 27 – the eve of the meeting of the CPI (M)’s Polit Bureau - and reportedly sought the party’s latest stand on the 123 agreement.

The CPI (M)’s central committee, at its recent meeting here (September 29-October 1), reiterated its demand that the government does not proceed with taking the next step of negotiating the “text of a safeguards agreement with the IAEA” till it can be discussed in the winter session of Parliament.

At the last UPA-Left committee meeting on October 5, members were informed that the government held that no formal talks were held with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on India specific safeguards – a key demand of the Left parties.