Issues remain to be resolved in N-deal: PM

NEW DELHI: As top officials of India and the US prepare to hold another round of talks on the civil nuclear deal, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on thursday said "two or three" issues remained to be sorted out but refused to predict when the agreement would be reached.

"There are two or three issues," he told a group of women journalists about the negotiations on '123 Agreement' that will operationalise the civil nuclear deal.

The talks have failed to yield any breakthrough because of differences on issues like grant of reprocessing right to India and New Delhi's right to conduct nuclear tests.

"Issues have to be sorted out before we reach a solution. We have to wait for the outcome," Singh said.

He said National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon would be going to Washington later this month "to sort out" the issues.

"Time will tell," he said when asked about the outcome.  Narayanan and Menon would travel to Washington on July 16 to hold talks with their US counterparts Stephen Hadley and Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns. The two sides are aiming to conclude the agreement by the year-end.