Setting the tone for the Parliamentary debate on the nuclear deal in which he will be the UPA Government’s lead speaker, Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal on Saturday tried to assuage Left concerns underlining the endorsement from Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar.

Speaking to The Sunday Express, Sibal said: “Our Atomic Energy Commission Chairman (Kakodkar) before 123 agreement negotiations himself had expressed certain concerns...He is now satisfied that all these concerns have been met with and resolved in the national interest.”

To the Left’s demand that the deal not be operationalised until its doubts are addressed, Sibal made it clear that the “operationalisation” of the 123 agreement was not imminent and could only take place after the India-specific IAEA safeguards agreement was worked out in conjunction with the NSG negotiations and the final step of US Congress approval. “Much before this, the debate in Parliament, in which all things will be clarified, will hopefully satisfy all those concerned over the historic agreement,” Sibal said.

That Parliamentary debate is now expected to be postponed to the first week of September after talks with the Left, senior UPA ministers and party sources confirmed to The Sunday Express. This was decided at a meeting of the Congress core group on Friday where the consensus was that there’s no question of any “surrender” on the 123 agreement. And that the party should keep the initiative with itself rather than be seen as both succumbing to the

Left and losing the “historic opportunities” that come with the nuclear deal.

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