Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon on Friday met IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei in Vienna ahead of a briefing for the UN atomic watchdog's board of governors on the India-specific safeguards agreement.
Menon had a brief meeting with the IAEA director general, sources said. However, the
details of their talks were not known.
The foreign secretary is in Vienna to brief the 35-member IAEA Board and 19 NSG members, which are not part of the Board, on the safeguards agreement and other aspects of the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Menon is expected to press India's case for allowing it to have civil nuclear cooperation with the international community. He is likely to cite India's impeccable track record on the non-proliferation front despite being a non-signatory to the NPT.
The briefing of the IAEA Board and NSG members by Menon along with Department of Atomic Energy Secretary R B Grover is crucial as the Board will meet on August 1 to consider approval of the India-specific safeguards agreement initialled on July 7.
After approval of the safeguards agreement by the IAEA Board, India has to get a waiver from the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group for operationalisation of the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Other members of the Indian delegation are the country's envoy to IAEA Saurabh Kumar and Joint Secretary in the Department of Atomic Energy Gitesh Sarma.