Burns' visit bolsters hopes on Indo-US nuke deal

New Delhi, May 28: US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns is expected here later this week amid indications that India and the US are in the final stages of clinching the 123 pact to operationalise the nuclear deal.

Mr Burns, Washington's chief interlocutor on the deal, will be here for two days from May 31 to hold talks with Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and others, official sources said.

The visit is also expected to prepare the ground for a meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George Bush on the sidelines of the G8 summit to be held in Germany early next month.

It comes in the wake of the talks technical experts of the two countries held in London on May 21-22 to thrash out differences on key issues like continued fuel supply irrespective any tests that may be conducted by India and rights to reprocess the spent fissile material.

Mr Burns, who had postponed his proposed visit earlier this month, last week described the 123 pact as the symbolic centrepiece of India-US relationship.

However, ''like all good things, it will continue to require hard work and difficult compromises to reach completion,'' he had said in the lecture at the Heritage Foundation.

''Despite some difficulties off late, I believe we will reach the mountaintop and realise the enormous promise of this breakthrough agreement...We are making progress in our negotiations and hope to conclude this historic agreement very soon,'' he said.

UNI

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