WASHINGTON, Feb 11: US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, the chief negotiator for the Indo-US nuclear deal, is expected to visit New Delhi later this month for talks on the troubled accord before President Bush visits South Asia next month, according to media reports.

The deal, agreed in principle last July, will give India access to civilian nuclear technology, including fuel and reactors. India has been denied access to US civilian nuclear technology since 1974 when New Delhi exploded its first nuclear device.

In exchange for access to the technology, India promised to separate its military and civilian nuclear facilities and open the civilian facilities to international inspection.

India’s powerful nuclear establishment has raised objections to a ‘separation plan’ but the Americans insist that India not only separate the two categories but also place civilian nuclear facilities under international supervision.

Mr Burns, who was in New Delhi last month, is waiting for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s approval for a second trip to India for nuclear talks, reports said.

Earlier this week, President Bush sent a team to India for talks on issues that may be discussed during his visit to New Delhi, including an agreement for civilian nuclear cooperation he may finalize during the trip.

But the plan to finalize the deal before the trip appears to have run into trouble over New Delhi’s fast breeder reactor program, which will process plutonium from spent fuel from India’s existing heavy water reactors.

The US wants India to open the prototype fast breeder nuclear reactor in Kalpakam and a couple of other places for international inspection as well.

India, however, says that the reactors are of strategic importance and cannot be opened for international scrutiny.

The Indo-US nuclear deal is meant to legitimise and ‘normalise’ India’s nuclear weapons and facilitate resumption of civilian nuclear commerce with the US.

Under the nuclear deal, the US will help India import uranium for non-military use for generating nuclear power.

In exchange, India must give assurances that the uranium will not be diverted for bombs by placing all non-military nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

India’s military facilities, however, will not be under safeguards, and continue their nuclear weapons programme without international inspection.

In December, India gave the US a list of civilian nuclear facilities it is willing to put under safeguards.

But in January, Washington said the list was too short and that India’s fast breeder reactors must also be put under safeguards.

The chief of India’s Department of Atomic Energy, Anil Kakodar, however, has publicly advised New Delhi not to put the fast breeder reactors under international monitors because it will ‘shackle’ his scientists and leave the country dependent on imported uranium.