NEW DELHI (AP) -- The communist parties that support India's ruling coalition have backed off their strong opposition to a landmark nuclear deal with the United States, clearing the way for the pact to go forward after months of high-stakes political gamesmanship.

The Communists, who had threatened to topple the government over the accord, said Friday that the governing Congress party could go ahead with talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which would need to approve any nuclear agreement.
After meeting with the nuclear watchdog, however, the government must again consult with the communist parties, said Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
The pact would reverse three decades of American anti-proliferation policy by allowing the U.S. to send nuclear fuel and technology to India, which has been cut off from the global atomic trade by its refusal to sign nonproliferation treaties and its testing of nuclear weapons.
Billed as the cornerstone of a new partnership between India and the U.S., President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have sold the deal as a way to bring India — a nuclear weapons state — into the international atomic mainstream. They've also praised its benefits for India's booming but energy-hungry economy, which would gain access to much-needed atomic fuel and technologies.
The four communist parties in Parliament have opposed the deal because it would strengthen ties to the U.S. Party leaders finally relented after they apparently saw their own political standing diminish after weeks of criticism over their response to violent farmers outraged over land rights issues in West Bengal, a state the CPI(M) governs.
The controversy left the communist parties weaker than they were in September when leaders threatened to withdraw support from the ruling coalition if the deal moved forward.
Before the deal is signed, it still has to be approved by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a group of nations that export nuclear material. It also must face another review by the U.S. Congress, where some members have misgivings about it over fears that the extra fuel the measure provides could boost India's nuclear bomb stockpile.
That, they worry, could spark a nuclear arms race in Asia, where neighboring Pakistan and China already have nuclear weapons.