Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, key negotiator of the deal from the US side, said he would be travelling to India in the next week or two for the “final effort” on the 123 agreement. “We have made enormous progress... We are 90 per cent there... In the next few weeks, we can see a major effort,” he said, speaking on India-US relations at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

Noting that it had taken “longer than we thought” to finalise the agreement, talks for which started two years ago, Burns said he looked forward to his upcoming visit to India for the “final effort”. He said the civil nuclear agreement, that will symbolically represent growth of Indo-US relations, was an “enormously complex” issue and had been going through intense scrutiny in Indian Parliament as was expected in a democracy.

Underlining that both countries were keen to conclude the deal, Burns expressed confidence that they will be able to get to the “mountain-top” and finalise it. “I am convinced that we are going to get to the mountaintop,” he added. He said he will talk to Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon in a day or two to decide on the date of his visit to India for further discussions with him. The two last met here on May 1.

Indian and US delegations had met in London and exchanged ideas on the nuclear deal on May 21 and 22. The Indian delegation was led by S Jaishankar, Indian High Commissioner to Singapore, and the US delegation was led by Richard Stratford, director of Nuclear Energy, Safety and Security in the State Department. The two sides, according to MEA spokesperson, clarified certain concepts and exchanged ideas. Burns said the technical-level discussions which concluded yesterday had also witnessed a “lot of progress”.

Finalisation of the 123 agreement has been delayed due to differences on issues like reprocessing right, perpetuity of fuel supplies and continuance of the civil nuclear cooperation if India were to conduct an atomic test. The US official said India had sought certain clarifications on the Hyde Act passed by the Congress in December and these were being addressed in the ongoing negotiations.

“It is going to require a little hard work... There will be need for some compromises by both the sides to complete the deal,” the US Under Secretary said, adding both sides were keen to conclude the agreement. “I am confident we will do it.”