US committed to civil nuclear agreement with India: Burleigh

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.