US to help India conclude N-deal

The US says it would support India's efforts in getting some of the steps cleared for concluding the nuclear deal.

The US on Wednesday said it would support India's efforts in getting some of the steps cleared for concluding the nuclear deal, but initiatives would have to be taken by New Delhi and the "timing" is too upto it.

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US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack was asked at his briefing if Washington is troubled by the fact that the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei has said that New Delhi had not approached him to begin talks on the safeguards issue.

"No, there are a number of different steps that will need to be taken in order to finally conclude all aspects of this agreement. It's going to be up to the Indian government to go through some of those steps on their own," he said.

"There's some things that they will need to do by themselves. Of course, we support them in those efforts. The timing of that is going to be up to them, though," McCormack said.

"We took a look at it, and we're going to keep working with not only those two representatives but others in the Congress to move forward on this deal," he said.

"They're important voices and they have raised some issues. And we want to be able -- we want to engage them to be able to reassure them of the importance of this deal, not only for the US government but for our nonproliferation efforts worldwide," the spokesman said.