US, India extend nuclear talks to fourth day

WASHINGTON, July 20 (Reuters) US and Indian officials today held an unexpected fourth day of negotiations on a controversial nuclear-cooperation agreement, but the State Department said the deal still may not be concluded.

''These talks have gone into extra innings,'' deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.

''They got to the end of yesterday and decided the ball game needed to be played out a little bit more, so they're meeting again this morning,'' he said.

But Casey stressed that while the two sides have ''made progress on narrowing some of the issues that are out there, ... none of that should lead you to conclude that you'll see an announcement of any kind made at the end of this.'' The two sides have been stalemated for months over the landmark deal, which would give India access to US nuclear fuel and reactors for the first time in 30 years.

President George W Bush, who considers the deal a major foreign policy success, has only 18 months left in office and is running out of time to get the agreement approved and implemented before a successor comes to power.

The deal must be approved by the US Congress. Support there for rapidly improving US-India ties is strong, but patience with what many see as India's unreasonable nuclear demands is waning. India's ties with Iran are also a complicating factor, experts say.

Obstacles have included a U.S. congressional mandate that Washington halt nuclear cooperation if India tests a nuclear weapon, as it did in 1998.

Other disputed points have been the US refusal to give India prior approval to allow reprocessing of spent fuel with US components and assure permanent fuel supplies.

MATERIAL FOR WEAPONS USE Aiming to prevent the diversion of nuclear material for weapons use, U.S. law prohibits such assistance to countries such as India, which are not formally recognized as nuclear powers.

But India has proposed getting around the problem by constructing a new reprocessing facility that would be subject to inspection by UN monitors to guarantee that none of the nuclear material is used for weapons.

The two sides were considering this proposal, which if agreed, would represent a special concession for New Delhi, US officials and congressional sources told Reuters.

''What the Indians want is unique. It would be an even better deal than what Japan got'' for its reprocessing program and Japan is a U.S. treaty ally, a non-nuclear weapon state and a signatory of the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, one US official said on condition of anonymity.

India has not signed the NPT. It developed nuclear weapons in contravention of international standards and tested a nuclear device in 1998.

The agreement that allows Japan to reprocess US-origin nuclear fuel is thousands of pages long and requires enough transparency so Washington is certain there is no diversion.

The proposed agreement with India would not provide the same level of confidence that no diversion takes place, said the official, who is skeptical of the proposed compromise.

Congress last December passed the Hyde Act, which created a unique exception to U.S. export law to allow nuclear cooperation with India.

The current negotiations concern a separate agreement spelling out technical details of US-Indian nuclear cooperation.

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