N-Deal: Do not succumb to US pressure, says Left

Left parties asked the govt to consider ‘grave consequences’ of US ‘pressures’ to change India's policy.

Left parties asked the government to consider the ‘grave consequences’ of US ‘pressures’ to change India’s policy direction on various fronts before operationalising the Indo-US nuclear deal.

“These instances of reconfirmation of the concerns expressed by us on the grave consequences to India’s sovereignty by this deal must be considered in right earnest by the UPA government before it proceeds to operationalise it,” CPM Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said.

Quoting the statements of US Ambassador David Mulford and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher about rushing up the operationalisation of the 123 Agreement, both Yechury

and the CPI asked the government not to succumb to American ‘pressures’ and put the deal on hold.

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Observing that Boucher wanted India not to overlook the political timetable and asked the government to come clean on Iran, Yechury said this was precisely what the Left has been saying all along.

“It is such arm twisting of India to change the direction of its policy that will increase as the nuclear deal anchored within the Hyde Act gets implemented,” the CPM leader said in an editorial in the forthcoming issue of People’s Democracy.

“Such pressures will not be confined to foreign policy positions alone. It will extend to vital areas such as defence cooperation, security and intelligence collaboration etc,” Yechury said.

In a statement, the CPI Central Secretariat said, “those in India who defend 123 Agreement should now understand the impact of Hyde Act and US efforts to drag India into its global strategy.”