By Xinhua
Washington : The United States and India is near to final agreement on civil nuclear cooperation after four days of talks, a joint U.S.-Indian statement said Friday.
The statement, released by the Indian embassy, provided no details but said: "we will now refer the issue to our governments for final review."
Rahul Chhabra, spokesman for the Indian embassy, declined to elaborate, but said "the text of the agreement has not yet been finalized."
U.S. and Indian officials began talks in Washington on Tuesday to solve their differences over civil nuclear cooperation. They planned to end their meeting on Wednesday but extended first to Thursday then to Friday due to differences.
"There have been some tough issues. This is new ground for both of us," State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said of the extended talk earlier Friday.
Washington and New Delhi have been stalemated for months over a historic agreement on civil nuclear cooperation reached in March 2006, under which India will get access to U.S. civil nuclear technology, and open its nuclear facilities to inspection.
U.S. President George W. Bush in December 2006 signed into law a bill approved by Congress allowing the deal to go through, a major step towards letting India buy U.S. nuclear reactors and fuel for the first time in 30 years.
One of major differences has been U.S. reluctance to allow India to reprocess spent atomic fuel, a crucial step to making weapons-grade nuclear materiel. Some warned that a nuclear arms race in Asia may occur if India is allowed to use the extra nuclear fuel.