NEW DELHI, Feb 9: The civil nuclear deal offered by the US to India was almost at a ‘now or never’ stage, as a post-Bush administration may witness non-proliferation groups forcing additional conditionalities in it, US Ambassador David Mulford has said.

The CNN-IBN channel on Saturday released excerpts from its interview with Mr Mulford in which he said that if this is not processed in the present Congress it is unlikely that this deal will be offered again to India.

He added that if the deal were to be revived, it would have to go through the US Congress Committee process “and I think the non-proliferation groups would insist on changes in many of the terms or additional conditions.”

Mr Mulford said: “I believe and I know both Republicans and Democrats believe this is the time to finish this deal.”