Manmohan Singh meets Bush, Putin, Blair, Sarkozy

Berlin, June 8: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today held a 'short, pull-aside' meeting with US President George W. Bush and a series of similar discussions with Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Nicolas Sarkozy of France and British Premier Tony Blair.

The details of the meetings, held on the sidelines of the G8 summit at Heiligendamm at the Baltic sea resort 250 km north of here, were not available, foreign office spokesman Navtej Sarna told reporters here.

The Prime Minister had a 'walk with President Putin and met PM Blair,' he said.

''Given the nature of the function there (Heiligendamm), they are all pull-aside meetings. There is no facility for formal delegation level talks. Bush came late to the (G8-G5) meeting as he was not well,'' the spokesman explained.

Further, National Security Advisor M K Narayanan had a meeting with his US counterpart Stephen Hadley at the summit venue today.

Dr Singh is scheduled to hold a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at Heiligendamm later in the day.

The meeting with Mr Bush, who had missed the morning session of the summit due to some illness, had raised the hope that the seemingly stalled negotiations on the Indo-US nuclear deal would get going once again.

Dr Singh was at Heiligendamm to attend the G8 summit with the five outreach partners -- India, Brazil, China, Mexico and South Africa.

It could not be ascertained immediately whether the two leaders had asked the negotiating delegates to find a way out to overcome their differences, mainly on India's insistence on retaining the right to conduct further nuclear tests and reprocess the spent fuel and New Delhi's demand for a US guarantee for uninterrupted fuel supplies.

The Singh-Bush meeting comes in the wake of the talks US Undersecretary of State Nicolas Burns had with Mr Menon and others in Delhi a week ago.

Both sides has acknowledged that tough negotiations are ahead for keeping the July 18, 2005 deal alive by signing the 123 agreement, necessary for implementing the proposed cooperation on the civilian side.

It is understood that India has come out with new ideas to resolve the spent fuel recycling problem and is expecting a positive response from the US.

Official circles expect Mr Bush to appreciate some of India's suggestions and ask his side to find ways to accommodate them to the satisfaction of the critics keeping a close watch on the developments on the deal.

UNI

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