Click to play videoNew Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W Bush discussed the Indo-US nuclear deal on Wednesday evening by phone.
The two leaders discussed "the forthcoming meeting between the National Security Advisers of both countries," said Prime Minister's media advisor Sanjaya Baru. National Security Adviser M K Narayanan will hold talks with his US counterpart Stephen Hadley in Washington on July 16 to break the logjam on the negotiations for the 123 Agreement.
Two major sticking points have been India's demand for the right to reprocess spent fuel and its right to conduct a nuclear test in the future. The negotiations have failed to yield any breakthrough due to differences on issues like reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel and India's right to conduct a nuclear test in
the future.
In view of the persisting differences, negotiators of the two sides have said a political push would be required to break the logjam.
During the telephonic conversation, Singh and Bush said they looked forward to "continuing their own discussions at their next meeting", which is expected in September when the Prime Minister travels to the US for the UN General Assembly session.
Singh and Bush were of the view that "these discussions (between the NSAs) will reinforce our strong bilateral relations", Baru said. Singh recently said that two or three issues remained to be resolved to finalise the 123 agreement and expressed confidence that the deal would be concluded soon.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also expressed hope recently that the deal would come through by the year-end.
Rice is likely to visit India for discussions on the issue but officials here said this would depend on the outcome of the talks between the NSAs.
Singh and Bush, who met last month in Germany on the sidelines of the G-8 Summit, discussed bilateral relations during their telephonic talk. "The two leaders expressed satisfaction at the strong India-US bilateral relationship," Baru said.
The telephonic conversation was a sequel to the decision made by the two leaders during their meeting on the margins of the G-8 Summit to have regular contacts.
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