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Indian Premier Explains Vote on Iran Nuclear Issue to Left Parties

Posted on: Wednesday, 28 September 2005, 09:00 CDT

Text of report by Indian Doordarshan DDTV news channel on 28 September

[Presenter] Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met leaders of Left parties over breakfast today to explain India's vote in the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] Board meeting on the Iran nuclear crisis. However, Left leaders remained unconvinced. The Left also said that New Delhi should work towards ensuring that Iran issue is not referred to the Security Council.

[Unidentified correspondent, reading Rishi Kumar's report - recording] Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh met leaders of Left parties on Wednesday [28 September] to explain India's vote in the IAEA Board meeting on the Iran nuclear crisis. But, the Left leaders remained unconvinced. They said the government gave the impression of being totally aligned with the US and violated the Common Minimum Programme's pursuit of an independent foreign policy. They demanded that New Delhi should work towards ensuring that the Iran issue is not referred to the UN Security Council.

[Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Sitaram Yechuri] The PM's point was that we had taken this position in order not to allow the question of Iran's nuclear activities to come up before the United Nations Security Council and our position has actually delayed this process. Our assessment, on the contrary, is that whatever position we may have taken, the fact that two of the veto powers in the UN Security Council - Russia and China - having abstained in this vote, even if this was taken to the Security Council, it would not have seen the day there with this position.

[Correspondent] Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who also attended the hour-long meeting, acknowledged the government's differences with the Left parties on the issue.

[Mukherjee] Prime minister invited the leaders of Left parties - Mr Yechuri, Mr Bardhan, Mr Raja, Mr Abani Roy. They responded to this invitation. Prime minister and foreign secretary briefed the Left leaders the circumstances under which India took this decision to vote in IAEA. Of course, in these matters different parties have different perceptions. The Left leaders also shared their perceptions with the representatives of the government.

[Correspondent] The Left parties have been strident in their criticism of India's stand on the Iran issue calling it pro- American. With Bureau inputs, Rishi Kumar's report, DD News, Delhi.

[Presenter] Meanwhile, Iran has expressed surprise over India's support to the IAEA resolution. It has threatened to review its economic and trade ties with all those countries which voted against Tehran. It has also threatened to resume Uranium enrichment and blocking UN inspections to its nuclear facilities. Iran wants the United Nations nuclear agency, IAEA, to retract its resolution that has put the country on the verge of a referral to the Security Council for possible sanctions.

And reacting to Iran's threat of severing trade ties, India said it has not been any indication of Tehran to review its long- standing cooperation which was in the interest of both countries. External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran had explained the background of India's decision during a meeting with the Iranian ambassador, F Z Yaghoubi, yesterday. The clarification came following reports that Iran has conveyed that the 21bn-dollar deal to supply LNG was off following India voting in favour of the IAEA resolution. India also reiterated the importance it attaches to maintaining traditionally close relations with Iran.

Meanwhile, India has once again said that its vote against Iran's nuclear plans will not affect the prospects on the proposed 7.4bn- dollar Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline and also the 22bn-dollar [as heard] deal to import LNG [Liquefied Natural Gas] from Tehran. Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar was speaking on the sidelines of a CII [Confederation of Indian Industry] seminar in the capital.

[Aiyar - recording] I do not believe current developments are going to, in any way, adversely affect the enormous progress we have been making and are making on bringing the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline into fruition.

Source: BBC Monitoring South Asia

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