Mulford meets Menon, expresses disappointment over nuke deal impasse

U.S. Ambassador to India David Mulford met Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon here today and reportedly discussed the fate of the July 18,2005 bilateral civil nuclear agreement.

New Delhi, Oct.18 : U.S. Ambassador to India David Mulford met Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon here today and reportedly discussed the fate of the July 18,2005 bilateral civil nuclear agreement.

Mulford is understood to have conveyed Washington's displeasure over the uncertainty surrounding the pact, and is believed to have sought to know what the Manmohan Singh Government plans to do to push the deal forward, inspite of the Left's opposition to it.

The meeting came a day after Singh said the "process of evolving a meaningful consensus" on the deal is still on, indicating that he had still not lost hope on it.

The comment came less than a week after Singh said that failure of the deal would not be "the end of life" and that his was "not a one-issue government".

Three days ago, US President George W Bush called up Singh, who was in Nigeria, and the Prime Minister told him that "difficulties" had arisen in operationalisation of the deal.

Mulford had earlier met External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Joint Secretary (Americas) in the Ministry to convey his country's disappointment.

ANI