Home

Manmohan meets Sonia, Natwar; Volcker firm

     New Delhi/New York: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met both Congress president Sonia Gandhi and External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh on Friday and is understood to have discussed the possible fallout of the Volcker Inquiry Report on kickbacks arising out of the Oil for Food deals inked by Iraq under President Saddam Hussein. Friday's meeting took place even as the Congress Party has decided to send a legal notice to the Volcker Committee and the UN seeking an apology and the raison d'jtre for its name in the report. The meeting comes in the midst of a raging political controversy over the Volcker report naming the Congress party and Natwar Singh as indirect beneficiaries in the Iraqi oil deals and a strident demand by the BJP for the minister's dismissal. General secretaries of the BJP are meeting in the Indian capital this evening to discuss the issue further and the course of action that the opposition party is to take in the immediate future.

    In the wake of the Volcker committee report, Natwar Singh had a late night meeting with the Prime Minister on Thursday, the second in the day. Earlier in the day, Natwar Singh had met Manmohan Singh after which the Prime Minister's Office said the government was "determined to go to the root of the matter and establish the truth or otherwise of these (unverified) references" in the UN probe report. "The matter is under the serious consideration of the government and a decision will be announced shortly," a press release issued by Prime Minister's Media Advisor Sanjaya Baru said. The statement said "the Government is deeply concerned about the unverified references made in the Volcker Committee report to the Congress Party and the External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh." "The Volcker Committee report, as it stands today, is insufficient to arrive at any adverse or definitive conclusion. Therefore, the government is determined to go to the root of the matter and establish the truth or otherwise of these references. The matter is under the serious consideration of the Government and a decision will be announced shortly," it said. Asked whether an enquiry could be ordered, Baru said it can be there.

    In New York, former U.S.Federal reserve Chairman and head of the U.N.Committee looking into the Oil for Food scam, Paul Volcker, has refuted Natwar Singh`s statement that he (Singh) and the Congress party had been made scapegoats in his report. Volcker reiterated that all those who were named in the report were notified and given a chance to clarify on the contents about them, and added that the Congress is welcome to send a legal notice to the committee and to the U.N. Volcker told reporters in New York on Thursday that he did not know that Natwar Singh was the External Affairs Minister of India. "I came to know yesterday that Natwar Singh is the Foreign Minister," Volcker said. The Volcker Report alleged that 1.8 billion dollars in bribes and illegal surcharges were paid to the Saddam regime in the mid- 1990s, and everyone named had been given a chance to clarify. "We have indicated carefully everybody was notified that they are going to be listed and we also indicated what their response was if any," Volcker said. "If the response was that of denial we listed it and if the response in a few cases was yes we did it and that was listed. Many got no response, many were in between. If we did it, we didn't realise we were doing it. It was a rather common response," Volcker said. Volcker said 2,500 companies and individuals were listed in the report.

     Meanwhile, Natwar Singh today talked on telephone with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Iran nuke issue, and the two sides decided to work closely to reach a consensus on the same. Ahead of the IAEA's meeting in Vienna later this month, Lavrov called up Singh to inform that Russia was in touch with EU-3, China, the US, and Iran on the issue, and would keep India informed about efforts to build consensus on it, External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said here. "Russian foreign minister said that all efforts would be made to reach a consensus on the issue," he said. The two ministers also reviewed bilateral relations and follow-up to the recent joint commission meeting held in Moscow. They also discussed upcoming meeting of ministers of Russia, China and India in March 2006, which will be followed by the meeting of business delegations of the three countries. The IAEA meeting on Iran's nuclear issue is scheduled for November 24. While India wants the issue to be resolved amicably, the US has threatened that if Teheran does not get back to the negotiating table by then, the meeting will vote against making the issue to be referred to the UN Security Council. Last month, India had reiterated its commitment to resolve the Iran nuclear issue within the framework of IAEA. Natwar Singh, who met Iran's First Deputy President Parviz Davoodi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Moscow, explained India's stand on the issue and the reasons behind New Delhi's decission to vote against Tehran at the IAEA Board of Governor's meeting.

Leading Indian News Papers

Travel News

Travel Sites:

Overseas Tourist
Offices

Tourist offices
in India