NEW DELHI, Oct 16: US President George W. Bush made a telephone call to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday, and the two leaders discussed a range of issues that included regional developments pertaining to Pakistan and Afghanistan, said an official statement from New Delhi.
It was not clear from the statement whether the 10-minute telephone call took up India’s ties with Pakistan and Afghanistan, or focused the current ties between Kabul and Islamabad. The Indian version indicated that the call had a packed agenda, also focusing on North Korea and India’s troubled nuclear cooperation deal with the US.
According to the statement, the discussion included “the Doha Round of trade negotiations, the India-US Civil Nuclear Cooperation understanding, developments in the region including Pakistan and Afghanistan, and recent developments in North Korea.”
The Press Trust of India (PTI) said with regard to the civil nuclear deal, “Bush and Singh are understood to have discussed its future considering that the bill on it could not be taken up for vote by the US Senate during its last session last month, ahead of the November 7 Congressional elections.”
The legislation could not be considered for lack of time and India now hopes that it will be taken up during the brief ‘lame-duck’ session after the Congressional elections.
“If the bill is not taken up for vote during the ‘lame-duck’ session, it will spill over to the next Congress which convenes in January next year and the entire process has to begin anew,” said the PTI.
The Indian prime minister said on Saturday that India had been assured by the Bush administration that it would use its influence to ensure that the bill went through the Congress.
