As officials from India and US continued their negotiations to clinch the civil nuclear deal, Washington on Friday expressed confidence that the agreement would become a reality in the “very near future” but indicated there could be no announcement after the current round.
The Bush administration also said even if there was no announcement on Friday about reaching an agreement on the deal, it would not mean that there will not be a deal or no forward movement on that.
“It’s clear that both countries are willing to work with one another to achieve an agreement, and we’re certainly hopeful that we’ll get one in the very near future,” US State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said.
“In terms of what we’ll get from Friday meeting, we’ll see where we are. But certainly I wouldn’t read a lack of an announcement of an agreement on Friday as anything indicating that we won’t ultimately be able to have a deal and be able to move forward on this,” he said.
‘Not a failure’
Casey was asked that if the negotiators ended their session on Friday without an agreement why it should not be seen as a failure since this was seen as the last round. “...we’re into extra innings again. These talks were scheduled to go for a couple of days. They were extended out Thursday. And they’re, in fact, doing an additional round on Friday... I think what you can take from that is the fact that both sides are very committed to reaching an agreement here,” he said.