Manmohan keeps his date with Bush tomorrow

Sapporo, Jul 8 (UNI) Unfazed by the Left withdrawing support to his government, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh keeps his date with US President George Bush at his hotel in Toyako, the venue of the G-8 summit, early tomorrow morning.

Dr Singh remained preoccupied all through the day today with several bilateral meetings, including with Chinese President Hu Jintao, and a summit of five Outreach countries.

The Prime Minister will travel for over two hours by road to meet Mr Bush in Hotel Windsor. He will leave Sapporo at 0500 hrs tomorrow for the 35-minute bilateral with Mr Bush at Toyako, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said here this evening.

Mr Shyam Saran, the Prime Minister's special envoy on the nuclear deal, which is slated to figure during the discussion, will also accompany Dr Singh to the venue of the G-8 summit in the northern Japanese lake resort town.

The Foreign Secretary said the Left's withdrawal of support to the UPA government did not affect the Prime Minister's schedule of engagements today and he will hold his bilateral meeting with Mr Bush as planned much in advance. " We went through (our engagements) and nobody said anything (on India's domestic political situation),'' he added.

Mr Menon said the Prime Minister's meeting early tomorrow morning will take place as scheduled and following this he would attend a multilateral dialogue between G-8 and O-5 countries. The Prime Minister, he added, will later have bilaterals with the leaders of Russia, Japan, Canada and Australia followed by his last but brief enagement with leaders of Bric--Brazil,Russia,India and China.

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