NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Wednesday expressed serious reservations about the United States and India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006 draft Bill presented before the U.S. House International Relations Committee.

In a statement, the Polit Bureau asked the Manmohan Singh Government to uphold India's sovereignty and not deviate from its stated foreign policy commitments and positions under U.S. pressure.

Sovereignty

Responding to media reports, the party said a more substantive response would be issued when full details were known. The Bill said the Presidential waiver would "cease to be effective" if India conducted a nuclear test. India's unilateral moratorium on conducting nuclear tests could not be subservient to such conditionalities. Its sovereignty on these matters could not be compromised, the CPI(M) said.

Secondly, the Bill made a specific reference to securing India's "full and active participation" in the U.S. efforts to "dissuade, isolate and if necessary sanction and contain Iran" for seeking nuclear weapons. This clearly confirmed the party's apprehensions that through this nuclear deal, Washington would arm-twist India to change its foreign policy to kow-tow to the U.S. strategic global designs.

Thirdly, the Bill sought to force India to comply with the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, which the country refused to sign in the past on grounds of its being discriminatory.

Contrary to assurance

Fourthly, the Bill said the U.S. President must first determine that India and the International Atomic Energy Agency "concluded a safeguards agreement requiring the application of IAEA safeguards in perpetuity." This, the CPI (M) said, ran contrary to the assurance given by the Prime Minister in Parliament that India would approach the IAEA for safeguards only after the U.S. endorsed the July 18, 2005 nuclear deal.

The CPI(M) said these apprehensions completely contradicted the assurances given by the UPA Government to Parliament and the country that India would not fall prey to the U.S. "carrot and stick policy."

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