Pranab in US buys time for N-deal
External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee met US president George Bush at the White House to discuss the nuclear deal which is weighed down by domestic political opposition.Bush, who sees the nuclear deal as his “major” foreign policy centrepiece on the lines of Nixon’s overture to China, may get cold comfort from Mukherjee’s dull visit. When secretary of state Condoleezza Rice briefed the media with Mukherjee, at the state department’s Benjamin Franklin room, it was evident that the Americans had tempered their expectations from the visit.
Rice spiked a wordy, two-page statement that her aides had reportedly prepared for her to merely state the fact; “The Indians are now in a process of working with the International Atomic Energy Agency and we will follow that progress.”
She sidestepped a question on whether the Bush administration would give up on the Indian nuclear deal if it was not sent to Congress by July. Mukherjee did try and buy time by pointing out that the Indian government was doing its best, but was stuck at the “second stage.”
“We are interested in implementing the landmark agreement…. But we have some political problems in our country. Currently, we are engaged in resolving those problems,” Mukherjee told the conference.
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Source: DNA
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