'US will work to make the deal a reality'

WASHINGTON: Dismissing speculations that the Indo-US nuclear deal was "dead", the Bush administration has said that Washington will continue to work for making the landmark deal a reality.

"We are still very supportive of the deal. We still would like to see it move forward, but the Indian government and the political system is engaged in a debate, and we'll see what the outcome out of that debate is," US States Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Asked if believed that the deal was "dead", McCormack replied, " We continue to support the agreement and would like to move forward with it" refusing to make predictions if the process will go through next year.

"I'm not going to make any predictions. We continue to support it though." McCormack said.

Refusing that the US would get into the debate that is currently going in India between the political parties over the deal, he said "I understand there are a lot of intensive domestic political discussions in India. The Indian government and the political system will play out those discussions. It's not something that we're going to directly participate in."