Ahead of the UPA-Left committee meeting, the CPI(M) on Thursday suggested that it is not opposed to a safeguards agreement with the IAEA but maintained its objections to the nuclear deal with the US.

Notwithstanding Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement on Wednesday that the nuclear deal is in India's strategic interest, the Left party insisted that it has apprehensions with regard to the deal and will give its nod only when these are addressed.

“Our objection is not with IAEA. Our objection is with the 123 agreement, which according to us is very deeply anchored in the Hyde Act (of the US),” CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury said an New Delhi.

Asked whether the Left will allow signing of the safeguards agreement if the government delinks it with the 123 pact, Yechury did not spell out his mind, saying “let them say that. It all depends on what the government says on June 18.”

He said the Hyde Act, under which the US can have civil nuclear cooperation with India, has "many features which are objectionable and not acceptable, with regard to India's sovereignty."

“Now given this our objection is to the 123 agreement and the Hyde Act. We should definitely want to know whether it is going to happen or not happen,” said Yechury, who is a member of the UPA-Left committee on nuclear deal.

The committee, set up in November 2007 to resolve the differences between government and Left allies over the nuclear deal, will meet on June 18 to discuss whether the government should go ahead with signing the safeguards agreement with IAEA.

India has already concluded negotiations for the safeguards agreement with IAEA but it is yet to be signed, pending a clearance from the Left parties.

The safeguards agreement with the IAEA is a key step for operationalisation of the deal with the US which the Left parties are opposing strongly.

Noting that the UPA-Left committee was set up to decide on whether the government should go ahead with the deal, Yechury said the panel is still to come to any conclusion.

On the Prime Minister's comments on Wednesday, Yechury said that Singh had only reiterated his known position on the Indo-US deal.

Pitching for the deal, the prime minister said that it was crucial for India's strategic interests and end to the "nuclear apartheid" against the country. Singh allayed apprehensions that it would compromise the country's interests.

Yechury said his party continues to have "apprehensions and objections" with regard to the deal.

The CPI(M) leader refused to be drawn into the reported comments of a former key US negotiator Ashley Tellis that the deal is almost certainly dead.

"It is an agreement between the Indian Prime Minister and US President. There is nothing called as an assessment. We have some apprehensions and want to see how these apprehensions are met," Yechury said.

About BJP's recent statements that it was not against the deal, Yechury said the saffron party is "misleading people" on the issue.