Sunday, November 13 2005 20:21 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Dhaka: With Left parties raising their pitch against the recent Government vote, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today (Nov 13, 2005) said efforts can and should be made to evolve a broad-based consensus to avoid voting on Iran's nuclear issue at the upcoming IAEA meeting.

Addressing a press conference here on the conclusion of his three-day visit, he refused to state how India will vote at the November 24 meeting saying it will depend on what are the issues that are being voted.

"Efforts can be and should be made to evolve a broad-based consensus so that there is no need for vote. But if it comes for vote, I cannot predict what we will do. It depends on what are the issue, which are the subject matter of voting or no voting," he said.

India has maintained that it wanted to avoid the issue of going to UN Security Council and had voted accordingly at the last meeting of IAEA in September.

Seeking to underplay recent statements emanating from Washington that India should first segregate its civil and military nuclear entities before sanctions could be lifted on it, the Prime Minister said such remarks should not bother us.

"I stand by what I said in Parliament (on July 29 that US had assured that it will take steps to lift sanctions before India separated civil and military nuclear entities)," he said when referred to a recent statement by a senior Bush Administration official.

"People do make statements directed at specific audiences, we should not get worked up. What ever I said in Parliament is our position on the matter," he said.