Safeguards text keeps fuel supply safe, guards right to act if disrupted

  • 10/07/2008

  • Indian Express (New Delhi)

Echoes assurances given by PM to House; clears right to strategic fuel reserve New Delhi, July 10: Two days after it lost the support of its key allies from the Left on this very issue, the government today finally took the lid off the safeguards agreement it's negotiating with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The draft agreement, sent to the IAEA Board of Governors late last evening, echoes the assurances made by the Government, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, over several debates in Parliament: the country's right to maintain a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel and provisions for taking "corrective measures' in the event of disruption of fuel supplies to safeguarded reactors. It takes note of the "relevance' of the July 18, 2005 joint statement of India and the United States