Date:25/06/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/06/25/stories/2008062558100100.htm

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Left parties reject “compromise formula”

Vinay Kumar

NEW DELHI: Top Left leaders on Tuesday rejected a “compromise formula” doing the rounds that will enable the government to take the India-specific safeguards agreement to the IAEA.

Highly placed sources in the Left said the formula was “meaningless” because after the safeguards agreement is taken to the IAEA, it would be proceeded further by the U.S., leaving no role for India.

Left leaders said there was “no change in their stand” that the UPA-Left panel should be allowed to come out with its findings as per the agreement of November 16.

“We are saying, complete the process which you [government] committed to on November 16, 2007. The Left parties have made it very clear we are not going to agree to the government going to the Board of Governors of the IAEA. That’s the bottom line,” CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat told The Hindu on Sunday.

The CPI(M) Polit Bureau will meet on June 29 to discuss the outcome of Wednesday’s UPA-Left committee meeting. The CPI’s national secretariat is scheduled to meet in July first week.

Mr. Karat and CPI leader A.B. Bardhan held meetings with senior TDP leader Rammohan Rao, who conveyed a message from party chief Chandrababu Naidu that his party backed the Left.