June 08: The much awaited meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan singh and US President George Bush on the sidelines of 33rd G8 summit, in Heiligendamm, was expected to lead to a breakthrough in the much awaited finalization of Indo-US nuclear deal. Much to the surprise of everybody it ended in the shortest possible time.
Singh is expected to take forward the bilateral relations with the respective leaders of member countries and other participants of the summit but the ballyhoo about the meeting fizzed out without any conclusive results.
Observers within the country even went to the extent, before the meeting, to declare that deal would be final in Germany but nothing of that sort happened. Even embassy officials in Germany have denied any possible one to one meeting of the two leaders during the summit.
Media reports coming out of the Germany declared that the meeting was of the shortest possible during. The expectations were high and so is the disappointment. “The keenly-awaited meeting between the two leaders on the sidelines of the ongoing G-8 summit in Heiligendamm in Germany was expected to lead to a breakthrough in the stalled negotiations on the Indo-US nuclear deal,” a news agency report from Berlin reported.
Due to stomach ailment of the US president, which also forced him to skip morning session of the summit, all that was possible was a push-aside meeting in which Foreign Secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon, was also present.
Till now, US-Indo nuclear deal remained stalled due to serious reservations on the both sides and this was seen as an opportunity to make a breakthrough. Meeting is over and issue is still there; let us hope and keep an eye on the next step.
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