NEW DELHI, 2 June 2007 — US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said yesterday he hoped that points of disagreement between India and the United States over a landmark nuclear accord will be overcome soon. “Both of us understand how important this agreement is to our relationship,” Burns said.
Describing the agreement as “mutually advantageous,” Burns said: “There is no question in my mind that with continuous hard work and good spirit we can reach a final agreement and we look forward to that.”
Burns, in New Delhi for talks on 123 agreement, was talking to reporters after a meeting with India’s Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma. Burns said Indo-US relations extended in fields of agriculture, education, science and space apart from the civil nuclear deal.
Describing his discussions with Burns as “very good,” Sharma said that they covered a wide range of issues including cooperation in space, science and technology, agriculture and nuclear deal.
Burns held discussions with India’s Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and Shyam Saran, special emissary on nuclear deal on Thursday. The discussions between Burns and Menon continued yesterday. Under the pact, India is to separate nuclear facilities for civilian and military use and set up a regime of international inspections for the former in return for technology and nuclear fuel supplies.
While progress has been made in talks on the nuclear deal, differences remain. Burns earlier claimed that 90 percent of the problems had been sorted out. Differences remain over India’s insistence that there should not be any deviation from the 2005 deal under which India would retain the right to conduct nuclear tests and reprocess uranium, which are vital for its three-stage program, and the fuel supplies would not be interrupted. India is against any legally binding clause on the agreement that could cap its strategic nuclear program.
