Defence pact with U.S. against national interests: Left

Special Correspondent

"Will only help serve Washington’s strategic goals in Asia"

NEW DELHI: The Left parties have assailed the recent defence agreement with the U.S. saying it "was fraught with serious consequences’’ for the country’s strategic and security interests.

In a statement here on Friday, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau said the United Progressive Alliance Government’s pact with the United States would only help serve U.S. strategic goals in Asia. "If this agreement is carried forward, India will be placing itself in the same category as Japan, South Korea and Philippines - all traditional military allies of the United States,’’ it said.

The party said the Manmohan Singh Government had not considered whether the present agreement was in consonance with the commitment to pursue an independent foreign policy and promoting multi-polarity in international relations as stated in the Common Minimum Programme.

Expressing concern and disapproving the agreement, the CPI said: "India signing this framework for the defence relationship definitely means compromising our sovereign foreign policy positions and yielding too much to the U.S.’

India and the U.S., it said, did not share common perspectives on the issues of political and economic freedom, fighting terrorism, weapons of mass destruction (Iraq as a case) and collaboration in operations (without U.N. mandate) in third countries.

"India also cannot and should not join USA on the question of missile defence system" as it would only serve the U.S. `imperialist goals’ and "jeopardise regional and global security.’’

The party said the agreement would only make India part of U.S. strategies and thus undermine the country’s role in international politics and its resolve to promote multilateralism in international relations.

The new framework, it said, was bound to drag the nation into an arms race.

The All India Forward Bloc too objected to the agreement stating that it was against the interests of the country and warned it would have "grave repercussions’ for the Non-Aligned Movement.