New Delhi: The United States said Thursday it remains committed to the civil nuclear cooperation deal and complete all agreements in this regard. It said it wanted American companies, like their global counterparts, to have contracts for supply of nuclear power plants with New Delhi.
''We want to implement all agreements which include 123 and waiver. No doubt nuclear issue will be discussed [at the meetings during the visit of secretary of state Hillary Clinton to India]. As far as the US, it will fully implement agreements made and move forward…and American companies have contracts like other countries'', said US charge d'affaires Peter Burleigh.
He was speaking at a media conference ahead of US secretary of state Hillary Clinton's visit to India on 18 July.
Clinton arrives here for the conduct of the bilateral 'strategic dialogue,' which covers a wide range of issues like education, science and technology, defence, counter-terrorism and health.
India is still unsure which way the chips are likely to fall after the nuclear cartel, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, tightened up its guidelines recently and barred export of Enrichment and Reprocessing (ENR) technology to non-NPT signatories.
Burleigh was at pains to point out that defence relations between the two countries would not be determined by the loss of the medium range multi role combat aircraft (MMRCA) deal. Both American companies, Boeing and Lockheed Martin lost out to European competitors.
Asked whether India would get access to David Headley and Tahawur Rana, in connection with the 2008 Mumbai terror attack case, Burleigh said ''we can genuinely discuss'' the issue but the matter does become slightly complicated in view of the judicial process on against them in the United States.
On foreign policy, he said, both sides would discuss the entire gamut of relations as well as East Asia, South East Asia and Africa. The progress in recent talks between India and Pakistan as also the US approach in Afghanistan would come up during the talks.
Ms. Clinton arrives here on 18 July for the official talks scheduled on Tuesday with external affairs minister SM Krishna. She also meets prime minister Manmohan Singh and the Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
