• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

India, US to hold nuclear talks Thursday

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New Delhi, May 30, IRNA
India-US-Nuke Talks
India and the US will hold high level talks here tomorrow on a proposed agreement to operationalise the civil nuclear deal amid keen interest on both sides to conclude the pact as soon as possible.

With 90 per cent progress already reported on the talks on '123 Agreement', US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns will be here for three days to hold talks with Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon to sort out the remaining differences.

The two sides will seek to wind up the year-long negotiations ahead of the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W Bush in Germany next week on the sidelines of the G-8 Summit.

According to PTI, on the eve of the talks between Menon and Burns, US Ambassador David C Mulford said today that "considerable work" was to be done on a "very technical and detailed agreement".

"We want to finish as soon as we can and both sides are positive we can do this," the Ambassador said in a statement.

The key negotiators of the two sides will aim at resolving differences on aspects like reprocessing right and continuity of civil nuclear cooperation if India were to conduct an atomic test in future.

The meeting between Menon and Burns was earlier expected to take place last week but was postponed as the US had sought some technical clarifications on a draft text presented by India, sources said.

The clarifications were provided by India at a two-day expert-level meeting in London from May 21 after which the two sides reported "further progress" towards finalisation of the mutually-agreed text of the agreement.

The upcoming talks assume significance as the two sides will aim at concluding negotiations on the 123 agreement ahead of the meeting between Singh and Bush in Germany on the sidelines of G-8 Summit on June 7.

Ahead of his visit here to make the "final effort", Burns sounded optimistic about clinching the agreement but maintained that "some compromises" needed to be made by both sides to make it possible.

"We have made enormous progress (on talks on the 123 agreement).

We are 90 per cent there," he said in Washington four days back.

Burns said the technical-level discussions between the two countries in London had witnessed a "lot of progress".

He noted that it had taken "longer than we thought" to finalise the agreement, talks for which started two years ago.

Finalisation of the 123 agreement has got delayed due to differences on issues like reprocessing right, perpetuity of fuel supplies and continuance of the civil nuclear cooperation if India were to conduct an atomic test.

"It is going to require a little hard work.. There will be need for some compromises by both the sides to complete the deal," the US Under Secretary said, adding both sides were keen to conclude the agreement and "I am confident we will do it."
2160/1771