Mukherjee, Karat

New Delhi, June 17: The Centre is scrambling to save the nuclear deal, with Pranab Mukherjee meeting Prakash Karat twice in two nights ahead of tomorrow’s session of the UPA-Left panel.

Sources, however, said no breakthrough was achieved.

“There is no change in our stand that the 123 Agreement (with the US) cannot be operationalised,” the CPM general secretary had told The Telegraph a few hours before tonight’s meeting. He did not comment on last night’s talks with Mukherjee.

The foreign minister had invited Karat home on Monday night and spoken to him for 45 minutes. Tonight, they met at the same place but the talks went on for over an hour.

Mukherjee is said to have asked the CPM boss for a short-term clearance for the first stage of the operationalisation of the deal: going to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors with the safeguards agreement.

The government’s argument is that the IAEA agreement would allow India to have nuclear co-operation not only with the US but with other countries too — a crucial need at a time of energy crisis.

Left sources said Karat did not buy the logic — not being mooted for the first time — that the safeguards agreement could be dissociated from the 123 Agreement. They added that the IAEA phase was the last stage in the operationalisation process where the Left could exercise its veto, so they could not allow the government to go ahead with it.

Government sources said the Centre was unwilling to push for the 123 Agreement straightaway and force a showdown. Instead, it was hoping to get some leeway on the safeguards agreement for now.

Mukherjee is believed to have emphasised that the operationalisation of the 123 Agreement was still a long way off, and that the government would take the Left into confidence on every move it made on the deal.

If the IAEA agreement is clinched, India faces negotiations with the Nuclear Suppliers Group countries to be allowed to do nuclear commerce. The US has promised to help with the NSG talks.

“Then the deal goes to the US Congress, so the IAEA safeguards is the stage where the deal has to be stopped,” a Left leader said.