New Delhi, February 6
The Left parties wanted the Manmohan Singh government to go with the non-aligned countries on the Iran vote in IAEA and it did.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who also holds the External Affairs Minister’s portfolio, will make a statement in Parliament to explain this at the first available opportunity when the Budget Session starts on February 16.

The government feels that the Left parties’ concerns and protests on the Iran vote are unwarranted as it did not do anything to the contrary. On January 31, when the PMO received the news of P5 plus Germany agreeing to refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council, Left leaders Prakash Karat (CPM) and D. Raja (CPI) were briefed by Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran in the presence of the Prime Minister.

The Left leaders agreed with the Prime Minister’s contention that a “new situation” had emerged in wake of the P5 decision and they promised to get back to the Prime Minister the next day after consulting all Left Front constituents.

The next day, the Left parties told the Prime Minister that they wanted the government to go along with the non-aligned countries at voting in Vienna.

The PMO is understood to have told the miffed Left that the government actually did what the Left wanted it to do. The non-aligned countries were split into three factions at the February 4 voting at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors meeting at Vienna: first, the group of three (Cuba, Syria and Venezuela) which voted against the EU3 resolution; second, the group of five which abstained (Algeria, Belarus, Indonesia, Libya and South Africa); and third, the rest (including Egypt and Sri Lanka) which voted for the resolution.

The government’s argument is that the faction of the non-aligned countries which voted for the EU3 resolution was the largest and thus it should be seen to be representing Non-Aligned Movement’s character and philosophy the most.