India, US officials to meet on G8-O5 sidelines: Menon

Berlin, June 7 (UNI) Raising hopes of some sort of breakthrough on the vexed Indo-US nuclear deal, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon today said officials of India and the United States would meet on the sidelines of the G8-Outreach 5 summit at Heiligendamm tomorrow, shortly before the talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W Bush.

Talking to reporters, Mr Menon, however, refused to name the officials, except himself, who would be involved in the official-level talks.

''I will tell you after we have had the talks tomorrow. Let us do it first,'' he said.

Both the official-level and the PM-Bush talks would arise from their ''pull-aside'' meetings and would not be formal in nature, he added.

UNI