India-US to hold talks July

Keen to conclude the civil nuclear deal by the year-end, India and the US will hold another round of high-level talks next month to sort out differences that have been nagging the negotiations for months.

National Security Advisor (NSA) M K Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon are expected to visit Washington on July 16 for talks with US NSA Stephen Hadley and Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns on 123 agreement, which will operationalise the civil nuclear deal.

The high-level meeting will come close on the heels of technical-level discussions between the two sides earlier this week in Washington where an effort was made at formulating a mutually-acceptable language for the agreement.

India's High Commissioner to Singapore S Jai Shankar, one of the key negotiators from the Indian side, was in Washington for three days during which he held discussions with Richard Stradford, director in the State Department's Nuclear Division, and some other officials, sources said.

The involvement of National Security Advisors from the two sides is intended to give a push at a higher level to the negotiations that have got stuck due to differences on issues like reprocessing.

India has been insisting on getting the reprocessing right but the US is reluctant, leading to a logjam.

The talks between NSAs will be followed by discussions at a higher level when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits India towards the end of next month or early August.