NEW DELHI, Oct 9: International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei said in Mumbai on Tuesday that the global nuclear watchdog was ready for formal talks with New Delhi aimed at legitimising India’s civil nuclear deal with the United States but remained non-committal over the sensitive issue figuring in discussions with Indian leaders.

“The IAEA is ready for talks whenever India approaches me for the talks,” Mr ElBaradei was quoted by Press Trust of India as saying.

“The Indian government will have to take a decision,” he said adding, “I will wait for them to come to Vienna to make a formal request.”

Mr ElBaradei’s remarks came as he prepared to meet Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and others in New Delhi during his five-day visit to India amid a debilitating strife within the ruling coalition over the issue.

The IAEA has to adopt India-specific safeguards and the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group has to change it laws by consensus to facilitate nuclear trade with India before the pact goes to the US Congress for approval.

On the first working day of his visit, ElBaradei met top Indian nuclear scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai and then went to a nuclear medicine centre to receive a teletherapy machine donated by India to the IAEA’s Progamme for Action of Cancer Therapy for the treatment of cancer patients in a Vietnam hospital.

Meanwhile, hectic talks continued on Tuesday between the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and Left leaders to save Dr Singh’s government from imminent fall should he go ahead with talks with the IAEA.

Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, doomed to contest Lok Sabha elections from the Left bastion of West Bengal should early polls be forced, is spearheading the UPA’s efforts to end the logjam.

Mr Mukherjee briefed ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi and other senior leaders about his overnight deliberations with Left parties. For now, the Left appears to have prevailed over the government not to start formal talks with the IAEA on an India-specific safeguards agreement for some of its civilian atomic plants.

Significantly, according to PTI, the Congress on Tuesday downplayed the Left’s threat to government, saying the Indo-US nuke deal was not a matter of saving or destroying the party-led coalition.

“It is not a question of sink or sail. Where is the question of sacrificing the government? A happy solution will come out and that is the desire of both the parties,” Congress spokesman Veerappa Moily told reporters in Delhi.

He said Tuesday’s talks between the Left Front and the UPA had produced a “healthy meeting”, and “when there is a meeting, there is a meeting ground and you can’t call it a deadlock”.

Quoting T S Elliot, Moily, who reads English poetry, said: “There is a shadow between idea and reality and the shadow has to be removed by the Left and the UPA”.