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Pranab begins US visit, to hold talks on nuke deal
Monday, March 24, 2008
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee has arrived in
Washington as part of his maiden bilateral visit to the US
during which the civil nuclear deal is expected to dominate
the parleys.
Mukherjee is scheduled to meet Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice at 8:45 am (6:15 pm IST). The minister will go to the
White House in the afternoon to meet President George W Bush
as well as the National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley.
Undoubtedly this will be the high point of the visit in which
Bush and Mukherjee are expected to go over broadening and
deepening of Indo-US ties which will include the civil nuclear
initiative.
Mukherjee would leave for New York on Tuesday on his way to
India.
Senior officials have been stressing that in Mukherjee`s
meetings, including at the White House, a range of issues on
bilateral, regional and global issues will be discussed, but
there is also a feeling that the civilian nuclear initiative
will merit a high degree of importance.
The feeling is that the Bush administration would want to know
from Mukherjee his thinking and that of the government of
India on this critical issue given his important role on the
nuclear initiative; and Mukherjee will get to know first hand
from the administration the important timelines left to be
resolved if the nuclear deal is to get through this session of
US Congress.
Top lawmakers from the US have made it known to India of the
absolute timelines left for the second session of the 110th
Congress to pass the nuclear deal.
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