"I hope it will be signed shortly."

In their opening remarks at the joint press conference, both the leaders expressed satisfaction over their talks and the state of bilateral relations between the two countries.

"India-US relations are today better than ever before and have transformed into a truly strategic partnership," Mukherjee said.

Reciprocating his feelings, Rice said the two countries were executing the vision of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Bush for closer and deeper relations between the two countries.

"The civil nuclear initiative is a historic agreement and historic achievement. The US will stand by its commitments," she said adding the US cooperated with India in the IAEA in view of its track record in non-proliferation.

"It gives us a new platform for cooperation in energy matters to develop civil nuclear power. We have opened new channels with India in areas of technology, agriculture, education and defence cooperation."

She said it was now one of the broadest relations US enjoyed with India. She also hoped that whoever succeeds Bush as President (after the November elections) would continue to build on the ‘strongest relationship’ that the two leaders initiated in 2005.

Mukherjee said India-US relationship today had more than bilateral significance and the two countries were working together on a wide range issues including climate change and on UN Security Council.

He said the vision of this relationship chalked out by Singh and Bush would serve the interest of not only India but the people of the region and the world. And as true democracies with shared values, both looked forward to further transforming the relationship.

... contd.