India, US discuss civil nuclear and other issues
13 Dec 2011
New Delhi: India and the United States on Monday have held talks on several issues, including the contentious civil nuclear liability act, with visiting deputy secretary of state, William Burns from the US state department.
The talks follow up on the the Manmohan Singh-Barack Obama meeting in Indonesia last month.
According to Burns, foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai and national security adviser, Shivshankar Menon, agreed on the need for ''full implementation'' of the civil nuclear agreement in the meetings he had with them.
Washington has sought greater clarity on the rules for the civil nuclear liability act, especially with regard to the limits on compensation to be paid by equipment suppliers in case of an accident.
American firms have so far held off from setting up nuclear plants in India because of misgivings arising out of implementation of the liability clause.
India too feels the US has not fully implemented its end of the nuclear agreement, especially with respect to transfer of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology and equipment. South Block has reasons to believe that the anti-proliferation lobby in Congress and the State Department were given a free run in the build-up to this June's Nuclear Suppliers Group plenary, which further tightened the ENR equipment and technology export rules.
