Narayanan, Menon leaves for Washington to push for nuclear deal

By Naveen Kapoor

New York, Sept 25 : National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon have left for Washington ahead of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh meeting with US President George W. Bush.

Sources told the Indian media contingent here that Narayanan and Menon have gone to Washington to discuss and hammer out the final aspect of the US-India civil nuclear deal amid reports that there has been change in the language of the 123 agreement/Bill submitted to the US Senate.

Media reports said that Indian officials have been engaged in hectic back room diplomatic talks to iron out their respective differences on the text submitted to the US Congress.

The Indian side have reached strong objection to the alleged changed in the wording of the text and insisted that it will be solely guided by the 123 agreement signed in its original form.

Menon told reporters here that whatever is being discussed by the Bush administration in Washington is solely an internal matter of the US Government and added that he would not comment on how the US is going to approach the next steps on the deal.

ANI