US committed to N-deal with India

WASHINGTON: The United States on Friday said 'some technical issues' have delayed progress on an agreement to operationalise the civil nuclear deal with India but it is clearly committed to the initiative.

"I can't give you a sense on the final timing, but, the government is clearly committed to the nuclear deal. We understand that the civil nuclear agreement not only is important, but it's also a template for dealing with other countries," White House Spokesman Tony Snow said.

He was responding to a query on whether the '123 Agreement' would be finalised during the meeting of President George W Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the G-8 Summit in Germany next week.

"Any time you have an agreement this big and this ambitious, you're going to run into some technical issues that make progress a little more halting than you'd like it to be. But we're still committed to its success," Snow said.

"One of the things we think is important for people to recognise, is you got nuclear power, which is clean, it doesn't have greenhouse emissions. It offers an opportunity to give people the prospect of economic growth without the kind of pollution that has caused environmental concern around the globe," he added.

Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon on Thursday held talks with US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns in New Delhi to iron out remaining differences on the '123 Agreement' which has already witnessed '90 per cent progress'.