But like several other issues that the Congress desires but the Administration chooses not to pursue, there has been no forward movement on this 2002 assertion until now.

It’s learnt that the current plan is to conclude the conference and come up with a reconciled version of the Bill by Wednesday that can be put to vote in the next two days.

While this happens in Washington, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns is slated to be in India next week to hold talks on taking forward other elements of the deal including the conclusion of the Indo-US bilateral agreement for civilian nuclear cooperation. The working target for both sides to implement all aspects of the deal is May 2007.

The Bush Administration’s effort over the next few days, sources said, will be to bring most of the contentious issues into the non-binding section so that they are not mandatory for the Administration to observe. It is clear now that the threat reduction programme is a non-binding element, but the ban on selling enrichment and reprocessing technology, the stringent end-use monitoring programme and that Washington will look to block cooperation if India were to violate MTCR and NSG guidelines are key Indian concerns that are still binding on the Administration.