The much awaited Left-United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coordination meeting over the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Agreement ended on Wednesday evening without a decision. After a 90-minute meeting of the 15-member committee, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and CPM leader Sitaram Yechury said that the committee will come to a conclusion on IAEA safeguards in its next meeting, for which they failed to mention a date.

Its ninth meeting of Left-UPA over the crucial Indo-US nuke deal which went undecidedly against the backdrop of the standoff between the two sides on the Indo-US nuclear deal. It was reported that all members except NCP leader Sharad Pawar attended the meeting where both the sides stuck to their respective positions even while maintaining that they did not favor early elections.

The two sides met at the residence of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, government’s chief negotiator, to discuss the latest situation arising out of government’s determination to approach the IAEA for finalizing an India-specific safeguards agreement.

The committee completed its discussions on all aspects of the agreement. Sources told that the next meeting of the committee is likely to be held in mid July.

Earlier, Pranab Mukherjee met Prime Minister at his residence (second time in a day) to give details of the situation before the crucial UPA-Left coordination committee meeting at 5 pm. Before this, Mukherjee had called on PM Manmohan Singh at the PMO to discuss the issue. The meeting came after the Left parties told Mukherjee earlier in the day that they would not accept a compromise formula that would have allowed the government to finalize the safeguards agreement required for the nuke deal, with the IAEA.

Left has dismissed the formula as “meaningless” hours before a crucial meet of the UPA-Left co-ordination committee to iron out differences on the civil nuclear deal. The Left parties maintained that they ‘understood’ the safeguards agreement would be on auto pilot mode for progress on the deal immediately after the IAEA Board of Governors approved it.  Later, Karat, Mukherjee and Antony had gone to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s residence to apprise her of the Left’s stand. Mukherjee also met UPA allies at 4:00 pm ahead of the UPA-Left committee meet.

Karat, meanwhile, also met Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, with the latter reiterating that his party would take a final decision on the nuke deal after next week’s UNPA meet.