No govt can renege on international treaty: Sibal

BANGALORE: Sending out a strong signal that the UPA is committed to the Indo-US nuclear deal, Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal on Tuesday said "no government worth its salt can afford to renege on an international treaty".

Talking to reporters here, Sibal said the bilateral deal is a solemn agreement entered into by the governments of India and the US and the UPA government is equally committed to the agreement as well as to addressing the concerns of the Left parties.

He said no political consensus had ever been sought before signing an international treaty but the deal had been discussed in Parliament frequently at every stage. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had given several assurances on the floor of the House on the deal, he remarked.

To a question whether the government would stick to the deal despite opposition to it from its partners, Sibal said: "We want to run the government full term...it depends on them."

Despite the Left's stiff opposition to the nuclear deal, Sibal said the government was confident about convincing the Left about it.

"They (Left) are reasonable men," he said, alluding to ongoing efforts to convince the Left about the need to implement the nuclear deal to meet the country's energy needs.

According to Sibal, the Indo-US nuclear deal was better than the one US signed with China and Japan as it provided India the advantage of reprocessing nuclear fuel and included a clause for a one-year notice period before scrapping it. China did not enjoy a similar benefit, he said.

Moreover, India had been allowed to enter the deal without giving up its nuclear programme and without signing the NPT. "What opposition could anyone have to such a historic opportunity?" he said while pointing out that such an exemption had been made only for India.

He said he was unclear about the "hidden" agenda of the Left, which has sought to oppose the agreement despite all assurances given by the government. The deal did not violate the Common Minimum Programme as is being alleged, he asserted.

Sibal said the deal was imperative for India because the country has very limited fuel reserves and the imported fuels will help in meeting its energy requirements, which are predicted to be in the range of 800,000 to one million MW by 2030. Thermal and hydro energy options, as an alternative, had a socio-economic impact tagged to them and there were also huge transmission losses in hydro-power.

Noting that Atomic Energy Commission chief Anil Kakodkar was now in Vienna to attend a IAEA meeting, Sibal refused to comment on his exact role during the meet. Replying to a query on the Indo-US deal impacting the Iran gas pipeline project, he said, "Who said we are giving up the Iran deal, provided we get it."