The Hindu : National : No nuclear talks with Bush at G8: Menon

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Wednesday, Jun 06, 2007
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No nuclear talks with Bush at G8: Menon

Special Correspondent

New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would have a "pull aside" meeting with U.S. President George Bush during the G8 `outreach' meeting in Germany on June 8 but the two leaders are unlikely to discuss the India-U.S. nuclear deal in any detail.

Briefing reporters about the Prime Minister's four-day visit to Germany beginning on Wednesday, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said Dr. Singh would also have bilateral discussions with China's President Hu Jintao and Nigeria's new President Umar Musa Yar'adua.

"I don't think we expect to discuss the nuclear issue as it would be a `pull-aside' meeting and not a formal bilateral discussion," Mr. Menon said about the Prime Minister's meeting with Mr. Bush. He said the issue would be mentioned in the meeting since it was a very important part of the bilateral India-U.S. relationship. But that was not a place where the two leaders could be expected to hold negotiations on the deal, he added.

At the most, say sources, the two leaders would likely reiterate their resolve to speed up the process of finalising the nuclear deal.

In Berlin, the Prime Minister would attend a meeting of leaders of the other `outreach' nations, i.e. Brazil, China, Mexico, South Africa and India, to discuss trade and develop-ment issues, including the impasse in the Doha round of world trade negotiations.

Global problems

According to Mr. Menon, the Prime Minister's interaction with the outreach and G8 nations would provide an occasion "to review at a very high level the nature of world economy and other issues faced by the international community". India, he said, was interested and willing to collectively deal with global problems.

Asked about President Bush's proposal to hold a meeting on climate change later this year with the leaders of India, China and other rapidly growing economies, the Foreign Secretary said India welcomed this. "We are ready to talk about this and other issues anywhere, any time," he said. But he cautioned that India believed any decision on dealing with climate change had to be done within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate.

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