WASHINGTON, May 17: Senior US and Indian officials plan to meet in London next week to try and rescue a nuclear deal that would give India access to US nuclear energy technology for the first time in three decades.
US Under-Secretary of State Nicholas Burns said that he and Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran agreed on the talks in a telephone call on Tuesday.
“We agreed to meet so as to go over all aspects of the nuclear agreement so that we can move it along on both sides. We agreed to meet next week in London,” Mr Burns said in remarks at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He did not specify a day.
Before his departure for London, Mr Burns will also consult a leading Democratic congressman who last week proposed a compromise to win over a congressional endorsement for the troubled deal. Congressman Tom Lantos’ proposal calls for delaying congressional approval for the agreement till the US and India finalise the safeguards applicable to Indian nuclear facilities.
The US Congress must approve the proposed deal, signed during President George Bush’s visit to New Delhi in March, for it to become effective.
Mr Burns said he would discuss the compromise formula Mr Lantos was offering when he meets the congressman on Wednesday. Another senior State Department official, Deputy Secretary Robert B. Zoellick, had earlier rejected Mr Lantos’ proposal saying that he felt the administration had enough support in Congress to get an endorsement for the deal without any compromise.
Rep. Lantos, who is considered a key supporter of the deal and the Indian lobby on Capitol Hill, however, said he believed there was not enough support for the deal in Congress to get it approved without a compromise.
