The Hindu Business Line : Nuclear deal not to interfere with India’s strategic programme: PM

New Delhi, July 22 The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, today asserted in the Lok Sabha that the proposed nuclear deal with the US and other nuclear power countries would enable India to enter into global trade for civilian use “without any interference with our strategic nuclear programme”.

Winding up the discussion on confidence vote he was seeking for his Council of Ministers in the special session, Dr Singh said that India’s strategic programme would continue to be developed at an autonomous pace determined solely by our own security perceptions.

For the first time in the annals of Indian Parliament, the Prime Minister had to table his reply on the confidence motion as the determined Opposition including the Left parties raised slogans demanding the response of the Government to use money power to secure MPs to win the confidence vote.

“We have not and we will not accept any outside interference or monitoring or supervision of our strategic programme. Our strategic autonomy will never be compromised,” Dr Singh said adding that India would be willing to look at possible amendments to its Atomic Energy Act to reinforce its solemn commitment that “our strategic autonomy will never be compromised”.

Stating that there was nothing in these agreements which would prevent India from further nuclear tests if warranted by our national security concerns, Dr Singh said “all that we are committed is a voluntary moratorium on further testing”.

He said the cooperation that the global community is now willing to extend to us for trade in nuclear materials, technologies and equipment for civilian use would be available to us “without signing the non-proliferation treaty or Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)”.

Dr Singh said that the US has taken the lead in promoting cooperation with India for nuclear energy for civilian use. Without the US initiative, India’s case for approval by the IAEA or the Nuclear Suppliers Group would not have moved forward, he said. He, however, said that this does not mean that there is any explicit or implicit constraint on India to pursue an independent foreign policy determined by “our own perceptions of our enlightened national interest”.

He also denied that there were some secret or hidden agreements over and above the documents made public. While conceding that there are some prescriptive clauses, he said that could not and would not be allowed to affect it by way the conduct of India’s independent foreign trade policy.

Dr Singh also recounted the various economic programmes the UPA Government had undertaken during the past four years and forcibly argued that despite Opposition’s “opportunistic” dissent on the nuclear agreement, “history will compliment the UPA Government having taken another giant step forward to lead India to become a major power centre of the evolving global economy”.

Related Stories:
Ten misconceptions about the nuclear deal
See-saw on the nuclear deal
Having the deal and saving the Government
Nuclear deal: UPA could have handled it better
Manmohan lines up meetings with leaders to garner support for n-deal