US wants N-deal with India as early as possible

Washington, Jun 6: The Bush administration has reiterated that it would like to clinch the Indo-US civil nuclear deal as early as possible, disclosing that there is going to be a follow up to the talks that US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns had in New Delhi on the issue last week.

State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack, who gave this information in reply to question yesterday, however, did not spell out the precise scheduled for the proposed follow-up meeting.

During his three-day stay in New Delhi, Burns had had several rounds of discussions with Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shanker Menon on the 123 agreement, which is required to put through the deal that President George W Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had signed two years ago.

McCormack, in reply to question about the progress in the discussions that Burns had with Menon and other officials in New Delhi, said, ''Well, I think that if we can get the terms of the nuclear deal right, that it will move through.'' He, however said, ''these are some pretty tough negotiations.

We'd like you to know, you had Nick Burns there (in New Delhi) recently. We made some progress. And we would like to get this deal done as quickly as we possibly can. There are going to be follow-up conversations.'' McCormack also said that the two sides aired some of their differences over a couple of the issues.

UNI

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