Mathai meets Clinton, says India committed to n-deal

Birmingham Star (IANS) Wednesday 8th February, 2012

India underlined its commitment to implementing the landmark civil nuclear deal when Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai Wednesday met US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and held a series of meetings here.

Clinton dropped by at a meeting between Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Mathai, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said. Clinton's meeting with Mathai was to "make clear that we support these consultations on the full range of issues", said Nuland.

Clinton is looking forward to the US-India Strategic Dialogue later this year, Nuland said.

In his meetings with senior US diplomats, Mathai is understood to have conveyed India's stand on a wide range of regional and global issues, including Iran, the situation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and the situation in West Asia.

Mathai held wide-ranging discussions with Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Windy Sherman and top officials from the State Department, including Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake, and Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights Maria Otero.

The talks have set the stage for the third round of India-US Strategic Dialogue for which External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna will visit Washington later this year.

In his meetings, Mathai reinforced India's commitment to implementing the India-US nuclear deal and assured a level playing field for American nuclear companies.

"We are committed to translating the success of our diplomatic partnership in changing the global nuclear order into an equally productive commercial cooperation in civil nuclear energy," Mathai said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a leading US think tank, Monday.

"We have the reality of our law passed by our parliament. And, as we have said before, we will provide a level playing field to US companies, and are prepared to address specific concerns of US companies within the framework of that law."