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 yesterday after former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a Washington audience that then PM 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,” 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 Prime Minister’s Office) with the (US) President’s 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.