Underlining that the US Congress had been “supportive in every way” to the Bush Administration on taking the legislative process ahead, he said the final text of the Bill was still to be seen but he was confident that there was nothing which would come in the way of Washington fulfilling all its obligations under the deal.

“The United States intends to meet all its commitments to India (made on July 18 and March 2). This includes those (commitments) of fuel assurances,” he said after holding consultations with Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on the N-deal Shyam Saran, National Security Advisor M K Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon.

According to him, the last 18 months was the most difficult phase of operationalising the deal and the next steps would be relatively “less difficult”. Responding to queries on the linkages in the proposed legislation to the Iran nuclear issue, Burns said India was in the “mainstream of international opinion” on this issue and, along with countries like China, Egypt, Russia and Brazil, has sent a “strong message” to Teheran that it cannot have a nuclear weapons programme. “All of us want Iran to gets its right to civil nuclear energy”.

On the current status of the Bill, Burns said the final text was awaited indicating that the reconciliation process was over and that only a formality of procedures remains. He added that the legislation will be cleared from the Congress in the next 36 hours. It’s learnt that the only signature that remained was that of Republican Majority leader in the House John Boehner who wanted to tag on another unrelated piece of legislation to this Bill. This, however, would be sorted out today as Boehner is in favour of the deal. Following this, an up-and-down vote will take place in both chambers of the Congress.

For India, this will be the first legal acceptance of its “unique position” as a country with advanced nuclear technology and nuclear weapons. “We have been telling other (NSG) countries that the time has come for India to be given its rights... we look at this (Bill) as the Liberation Act 2006 for India,” said Burns.

As for Indian concerns on the legislation as stated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on August 17 in Parliament, it’s learnt that the Senate’s insistence for “annual certification” by the US Administration that India is complying to all the conditions may be refined to a general reporting requirement that the US government does in the case of several other laws.

While the final version of the Bill was still to be put out officially, the understanding is that the ban on enrichment and reprocessing technology could also be further qualified. The language may be more positive now to include circumstances or conditions under which the law may not apply on the US Administration.

Besides this, qualifications could be added in provisions requiring Washington to lobby with other countries in case there is violation of NSG and MTCR guidelines. What is expected to be clarified is that such drastic steps cannot be automatically triggered without checking the intent of the Indian government.

Largely, it is believed that there have not been many deletions but a a lot of effort has gone into refining the language and organising the various clauses of this Bill. It is important to note here that the US has never made this exception for any country, which makes it an even more complicated legislative process.