India, US in talks to thrash nuke deal differences

New Delhi, May 31: US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns had a meeting with Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon today, kicking off serious negotiations to thrash out the differences between India and the US on the bilateral nuclear deal for cooperation on the civil side.

Mr Burns, who arrived here this morning on a three-day visit with the express purpose of finalising the language of the 123 agreement to operationalise the nuclear deal, held talks with Mr Menon at the foreign office at South Block.

Officials at the foreign office as well as at the American Embassy were tightlipped about the details of the talks, stating that these would be given out only towards the end of Mr Burns visit on June 2.

Shortly after the meeting between the two officials, technical level talks were held between the two sides with Dr S Jaishankar, High Commissioner to Singapore, heading the Indian delegation and Mr Richard Stratford, Director, Office of Nuclear Energy, Safety and Security, leading the American technocrats.

The reported differences between the two sides are on the issues of reprocessing US-origin nuclear fuel, uninterrupted supply of such fuel and India's right to conduct nuclear tests, if necessary, for going ahead with its three-stage programme.

Mr Stratford and Dr Jaishankar had held technical talks in London last week.

Reprocessing is vital to India's three-stage programme as the fast breeder reactors will need reprocessed fuel when they are ready for civilian use. For the US, this can serve as an added incentive to ensure that new breeder reactors become part of India's civilian programme.

Official sources said the last ditch efforts to save the deal were being made in view of the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George Bush on the margins of the G8 summit in Germany next week.

The deal has hit rough weather because of India's refusal to any deviation from the July 2005 agreement and the US predicament over some provisions of the deal which ran counter to its existing laws.

UNI