US claims progress on proposed 123 agreement

Washington, May 18 (UNI) The Bush administration has claimed progress on the 123 agreement, a prerequisite to implement the Indo-US nuclear deal, even as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns cancelled his planned visit to New Delhi.

When asked whether Mr Burns would visit New Delhi this month, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack yesterday said, ''I know that there were some press reports about whether or not he was going to be going this week or next week. I am not aware that he has any travel plans at this point to go to India.'' He, however, said, ''This comes up within the context of the 123 agreement. Where are we in that? We are working on it. We are making progress on it. It is not complete yet. But I understand that over the course of the past several weeks there have been some positive discussions on concluding that agreement. We certainly want to do that. We understand from the Indian government that they want to conclude that agreement as well.'' About his statement after India's Foreign Secretary Shiv Shakar Menon's visit that ''the deal can be closed by this month end,'' Mr McCormack said, ''I don't know if I said that it would be closed by month's end.

''I very rarely apply timelines to diplomacy because it inevitably proceeds more slowly than we would normally like. Sometimes we're surprised by that,'' he said.

The spokesman, however, said ''there is a commitment here to get this agreement done. We would like to do it sooner rather than later, but these are important issues. They're important issues for us. They're important issues for India. They're important issues for the international system that deals with matters of non-proliferation and nuclear energy. So we want to get it done in a timely manner, but we also want to get it done right.'' Regarding a news report saying, ''we will go to New Delhi when we are ready to seal the deal and we are not at this point,'' Mr McCormack said, ''Well, we'll see in terms of the timeline. Nick's (Nicholas Burns) going to do what he thinks is appropriate and most effective in order to get a deal done. And, at what point he travels to India, he's going to make that call. But he's going to do what he thinks is most effective to getting a deal.'' UNI