Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Barack Obama would meet on the sidelines of Group of 20 (G-20) summit of the world’s leading economies next month in London, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon expressed hope at a press conference in Washington on Wednesday after wrapping up the three days of intensive discussions with the Obama administration.
‘We are looking forward to it. But all that depends on the circumstances whether doctors permit the prime minister, who is recuperating after the heart surgery, to travel to London,’ Menon said, and added Secretary of State Hilary Clinton too had said she would visit India soon.
The forthcoming G-20 summit provides an opportunity to address the global economic crisis. It also makes the Indo-US cooperation on the issue more significant, the foreign secretary said.
About the landmark Indo-US civil nuclear deal which was inked during the tail-end of Bush’s administration last year, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, who discussed the nuclear deal with both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and his counterpart Under Secretary for Political Affairs William Burns, said that deal was ‘on track and making steady progress’.
Menon completely rejected the suggestion that Obama administration was ignoring India and the deal was not a high priority for the new US administration, and said: “There was no such thing. The civil nuclear initiative was a bipartisan effort passed by a Democratic Congress during a Republican administration. That is the strength of it.”
The deal had raised Indo-US relations to a new height from energy to economy, Menon said, adding both sides are determined to go with it. “I was really reassured by the administration to go through it.”
Deal has already been signed and now it’s a question of operationalization and its commercial use, Menon said, for that India has already signed an additional protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency and is domestically taking steps to sign the civil nuclear liability convention.
To suggestions that non-operationalization of the deal in the absence of the convention was putting American firms at a disadvantage, Menon said India was in the midst of the legal process to sign the international convention that lays down the standard.
Noting that the convention would begin to operate when reactors come into place, he said international standards should be enough assurance for companies intending to sell nuclear technology to India.
Besides, India’s relations with Pakistan post Mumbai attacks and counter terrorism cooperation were also discussed, Menon said. He said Pakistan had shown some positive signs, regarding investigation of the 26/11, but there was much more to be done such as to bring perpetrators of the Mumbai attack to justice and crackdown the militant’s infrastructure. Action taken against the proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) after 2002 was undoubtedly insufficient otherwise Mumbai incident would not have occurred.
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