Burns to reach NDelhi to discuss 123 agreement

Washington, May 31: The Bush administration has confirmed that Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns will reach New Delhi some time today to continue discussions on the 123 agreement, setting at rest the uncertainty that surrounded his much-talked-about visit.

State Department's Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey said that Burns would have left Berlin yesterday where he had gone with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to attend the G-8 meeting.

Mr Casey had injected an element of uncertainty when he said on Tuesday that Burns' travel plans had not been formally scheduled although the latter had expressed his willingness to visit New Delhi, if necessary.

Yesterday, in reply to question, Mr Casey confirmed Burns' visit but added: ''I'm not trying to predict anything will come out of this particular trip, but we're making progress, and we look forward to eventually concluding the deal.'' He acknowledged that ''there are some differences that remain (to be settled), but we're looking forward to being able to work those out. We certainly don't think any of them are insurmountable.'' The State Department's Deputy spokesman also reiterated that they had to make sure that the proposed agreement conformed to the relevant US legislation. ''So, there are limits to the kind of flexibility we can have, but the Indian Government understands that, and I think we're well on our way towards an agreement.'' Mr Casey said that the 123 agreement was an important component of implementing the overall US-India civil nuclear deal.

''Certainly, we believe that such a deal is in the interest of both countries.'' He said, ''we want to see this move forward and again, we've talked about the civil nuclear arrangement for a number of months now, but it is something that we believe is beneficial to both nations. It represents a new level of cooperation between our countries and we also think it represents a strengthening of non-proliferation regimes.'' ''It certainly is something that's been endorsed by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) as something they think will be helpful and beneficial and will provide greater surety to the world,'' he said.

Asked about the details that were to be thrashed out during the current round of Delhi talks, the spokesman said, ''that's something that I'll leave to the negotiators to do. Obviously, we've been talking about this for a while.''

UNI

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