New Delhi, Nov 10: The US on Friday said "serious" negotiations are yet to begin with India on the details of an agreement to enforce the nuclear deal but made it clear that the Bush administration was committed to pushing the Bill on last year`s deal through the congressional processes.
Visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said he was hopeful that the Bill on civil nuclear deal will go through the senate next week as both Republicans and Democrats were very supportive of the agreement.
"I would advise you not to start negotiating in the press on the agreement when we have not started negotiating in our own sessions," he told reporters here.
"Don`t start writing clauses. We have not started writing clauses yet," he added.
He was responding to questions on a news report that in the 123 agreement, which contains the operational aspects of the civil nuclear cooperation, the US had agreed to drop a clause barring India from conducting nuclear test in future.
"We have not begun serious work on the text. So don`t believe anything you hear about the text. It is not written yet," Boucher said.
He said the negotiators of the two countries had held "useful sessions" and talked about various concepts and things," Boucher said.
Underlining that the Bush administration was committed to pushing the Bill on the civil nuclear deal, Boucher said he was "very hopeful" that the legislation will be taken up in the `lame-duck` session of the Senate next week.
"The reason that we want to do this in the lame-duck session is that we want to do this. We want to do it as fast as possible because it is important to the US," he said.
"We made a deal. We want to implement it as agreed as soon as we can," he said adding "we are determined to do it. Whatever happens, we will make sure, it happens (deal goes through)."
The US Government will take every opportunity to move forward on the agreement, Boucher said, noting that President George W Bush had himself made a commitment in this regard.
Democrats have also expressed their support, he said.
"There is enormous support for the Indo-US relations which will be manifested in the Senate," he said.
Bureau Report
