Bush calls up Indian PM

25 July 2008

New Delhi-In what may be described as a significant move towards the progress of the Indo-US Nuke deal after the Parliament high drama, American President George Bush called up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday night and discussed the future of the deal.

"The heads of both the states expressed their desire to see the US-India civil nuclear issue move forward as expeditiously as possible," US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in a statement, zeenews portal reported.

Bush told Singh he looks forward to continuing to work with his government to strengthen the United States India strategic relationship, Johndroe said, adding that they had also discussed stalled World Trade Organizations talks.

Bush and Singh "discussed the importance of all leading WTO members making contributions to a breakthrough that will put the Doha Round negotiations on a path to conclude an ambitious agreement before the end of the year," Johndroe said.

The telephone conversation came ahead of Bush's White House talks on Monday with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani of Pakistan, India's neighbour and nuclear rival.

The United States and India have been working to secure the international support necessary for their controversial nuclear cooperation agreement, reached in 2005, to win approval.

India said on Thursday it was sending out envoys to lobby for the final international clearances, a diplomatic offensive coming after the UPA government survived a hard-fought confidence vote in Parliament sparked by Left's opposition to the pact.

Meanwhile, India's Minister of State in External Affairs Ministry, Anand Sharma discusses N-deal with Rice.

The US has lauded India's "deep resolve" to go ahead with their nuclear deal as Secretary of State Condoleezza met Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma twice to discuss the "next steps" for finalising the pact.

External Affairs Ministry sources said Rice and Sharma had a meeting on Thursday on "issues related to concluding the historic deal" within hours after they first met last night.

"Both the leaders discussed the next steps for finalising the deal," the sources told agencies.

The two leaders also met last night on the sidelines of ASEAN ministerial meet here and talked on the "entire gamut of issues" relating to the civilian nuclear deal.

They had a "very good" meeting during which Rice appreciated India's "deep resolve to go ahead with the historic nuclear deal", sources said after the first round of talks.

The deliberations reflecting the urgency India and the US were attaching to the nuclear pact assume significance as the IAEA Board of Governors meets on August 1 to consider the agreement for approval.

Commentary
Iran has no nuclear or other threatening aspirations towards the Jewish people, but to the contrary; relations are improving all the time, it was reported.

Furthermore, as for Iran’s nuclear program, it is what they say it is.

The only one that is known to having dangerous nuclear aspirations, is the Bush administration.

Update:

Bush calls up Indian PM