Manmohan Singh wanted to call off N-deal

Washington: Manmohan Singh told his team to “call off” the Indo-US civil nuclear deal a night before its scheduled announcement by President George Bush after Americans came with a killer proposal to let India have just two of its nuclear reactors out of the international safeguards, a top aide of the former Prime Minister has said.

Such a disclosure by former national security advisor M.K. Narayanan was made here on Monday after former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a Washington audience that then Prime Minister Singh called off the deal a night before its scheduled announcement on July 18, 2005, because the opposition parties in India were up in arms against it.

“I just wanted to set the record straight. I know that a view has been widely propounded that on the night of the July 17/18, Manmohan Singh had called off the deal. I think there were very valid reasons,” Mr Narayanan said in his clarification issued during a day-long conference on the 10th anniversary of the landmark civil nuclear deal.

“There was an understanding which had been reached (by the PMO) with the (US) Presidents office that the number of Indian reactors that would be kept out of the international safeguards would be number such and such,” he said at the event organised by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Confederation of Indian Industry.

“The State Department had a lot of people who wanted to teach India a lesson. By the time the visit was due, the number that was agreed on six to eight was reduced to two. That was the figure that was totally unacceptable from the point of view of the Ministry of External Affairs,” Narayanan said describing the events on the night of June 17/18 when Singh was visiting the US.