Indian and US negotiators, who have been engaged in information consultations to strike a common ground on the proposed bilateral civil nuclear energy cooperation pact, have not been successful so far in their efforts.
A formal meeting to be held here next week has been put off in the wake of their failure to arrive at a compromise text of the proposed agreement. Seemingly, the Indian negotiators led by Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon was expecting that the US side would accept their proposals on a final text and hence also envisaged a clinching round of formal negotiations. But on Thursday it became clear that the US side continued to have difficulties in accepting the Indian proposals.
Sources on the US side insisted that no dates had yet been fixed for US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns’ visit for what is billed as a clinching round of negotiations on the agreement. Obviously, the agreement has not yet been clinched.
External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtaj Sarna clarified that “no particular date had yet been finalised.” He added that the two sides were “in the process of exchanging suggestions and examining them.”