WASHINGTON, July 17: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who arrived here on Sunday on his first state visit to the US, has said that he would persuade Washington to share more of its nuclear technology with New Delhi.

In interviews to various US publications, Mr Singh hoped that his visit would lead to “a stronger, more durable and productive relationship with the United States”.

India has said it wants to buy nuclear reactors from the US to meet its energy needs. President Bush is believed to be sympathetic to the Indian request but elements within his administration are reluctant to share nuclear technology with a nation which has not yet signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. US laws forbid sharing nuclear technology with the nations who have not yet signed the NPT.

Those opposed to supplying nuclear reactors to India say the US would be sending a wrong signal to the rest of the world by rewarding a country which chose to stay out of the NPT and is a self-declared nuclear state.

In his interviews to the US media, Mr Singh insisted that India was seeking a relationship with the US as an “independent … not a client state”.

Mr Singh also rejected the suggestion that India could work as a bulwark against China. “I don’t think our relationship with the United States is at the cost of our relationships with China, with Russia or, for that matter, the EU,” he said.

Mr Singh, who meets President Bush at the White House on Monday, is likely to raise the issue of “the terror infrastructure that still remains intact in Pakistan,” said an Indian official while briefing journalists on the visit.