Bush admin wants Senate to approve nuke accord this session

Washington, Sep 29 (UNI) The United States President George W Bush's administration wants Senate to approve the US-India civilian-nuclear agreement as early as possible during its current session, though it has not yet set a date for its consideration.

In reply to a question, at his briefing yesterday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, ''we would hope -- we would certainly hope that it could get done in the next couple of days. I don't know if that's going to happen.'' He said, ''there's a lot of pressing business up there on the Hill (in Congress), but we're pressing very hard to get this done in this session and as soon as possible.'' Mr McCormack, however, said, ''India, as a multiethnic democracy, ''has a healthy understanding of the legislative process. We are pushing hard -- the administration is pushing hard to get all the required agreements, you know, up on the Hill, so that they can schedule a vote for it and to do that as soon as possible.'' Earlier, Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who led the delegation at the United Nations General Assembly, met Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in New York.

Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran and other Indian officials have met their US counterparts here in recent days in connection with the nuclear agreement.

Mr McCormack said Secretary Rice had a ''good meeting'' with Mr Mukherjee. ''The majority of their conversation was about the Indian civil-nuclear deal and, you know, all the various components and parts to that. So that was really the focus of their discussion,'' he said.

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