WASHINGTON, July 19: The US-India nuclear talks extended to an unscheduled third day on Thursday to try and bridge differences over a deal that could open the door to American nuclear technology to India.

The schedule for the four-day talks, which began on Monday, included two days of meetings between the two teams and two days of individuals meetings between Indian and US officials on.

But both Indian and US officials confirmed that the two teams will continue their talks on the third day as well.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an unscheduled appearance in the bilateral meeting, assuring the Indians that the Bush administration was still committed to the deal.

“This is not an issue in which I do play-by-play analysis. We'll see where we are at the end of the day,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack when asked to comment on Ms Rice’s participation in the talks.

Sticky points continue to be India’s refusal to accept a condition that the deal would be terminated automatically if it conducted more nuclear tests and its insistence that it has the right to reprocess nuclear feel it will receive from the US under the agreement.

India is also seeking guarantees for continued supply of fuel for the 14 civil reactors it has agreed to place under international safeguards under a separation plan. Eight other reactors designated military would not be subject to inspections.

India has sent chairman of its Atomic Energy Commission, Anil Kakodkar, to iron out technical differences.

On Wednesday, both sides, led by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns and Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, met for several hours.

Indian National Security Adviser M. K. Narayanan, who is leading the Indian delegation, then went over to the White House to meet with his counterpart Stephen Hadley for one-on-one talks and was then joined for a working luncheon by Mr Menon and Mr Burns.

The post-lunch session went on till late afternoon.

But, at the end of the day, both sides were still stuck on controversial issue, with the US unwilling to accept India's demands.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, however, assured the Indians that “the civil nuclear agreement is very important to us and we want to see it successfully concluded”.

At the State Department, Mr McCormack said that both the governments want to conclude the agreement and “there's no time like the present to reach a deal”.