India seeks speedy negotiations of reprocessing arrangements

WASHINGTON: India on Friday sought speedy negotiations of reprocessing arrangements as well as liberalisation of the export licensing procedures to move forward the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal.

Stating that India is committed to move forward on the deal, India's new Ambassador to US Meera Shankar said, "this (deal) is very high on our priority. We are conscious of the fact that it was the US Government which did the heavy hitting, if I may use a cricketing metaphor to get this deal through."

"We would very much like to move forward in a concrete way with agreements for building nuclear reactors with US assistance in India," Shankar said at a reception hosted in her honour by the US-India Business Council (USIBC), in her maiden public engagement after presenting her credentials to President Barack Obama yesterday.

Acknowledging the presence of leaders of the US nuclear industry who are anxious to convert the nuke deal into business agreements, Shankar said: "We are looking at the speedy negotiations of reprocessing arrangements to facilitate this process." Both sides have agreed to commence this process and have identified their nodal points. "So we expect to pursue this very expeditiously," she said.

In terms of our concerns on the Indian side, Shankar said, New Delhi would like to see the liberalization of the export licensing procedures flowing from the nuclear deal.