PM finetunes India's stand ahead of hectic agenda at G8

Sapporo, Japan, Jul 7 (UNI) With a hectic agenda of several bilateral and multilateral meetings lined up ahead of him from tomorrow at the G-8 summit, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on his arrival here tonight, immediately closetted with his aides to finetune India's response to various issues that are likely to come up in these meetings.

After meeting the UN secretary general Ban ki-Moon at his first engagement in the morning, Dr Singh will hold a 30-minute dialogue with Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Though the PM admitted there is no firm assurance from China on helping India in the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group on Indo-US civil nuclear agreement, yet it is understood he would impress upon the giant neighbour not to create any hurdle in the way of India securing safeguards agreement from the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog and waiver from the nuclear cartel.

The Prime Minister is also slated to hold bilaterals with Presidents of South Korea Lee Myung-Bak and Mexico Felipe Calderon besides participating in a meeting of the five Outreach countries, known as O-5. Besides India, China and Mexico, Brazil and South Africa are members of the O-5.

UNI SAA RP AS2117