By Arun Kumar
New York, Sep 27 (IANS) External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee met US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the sidelines of the UN general assembly session here and presumably discussed with her the India-US civil nuclear deal which has run into rough weather back home.
However, the Indian side would not say what inspired at the meeting here Wednesday beyond the usual formulation: “the two leaders reviewed bilateral relations across the gamut of items of cooperation. They also considered the international situation, and exchanged views on issues of concern.”
There was no word from the US side either but several officials have of late suggested that the nuclear deal should be completed “sooner or later but sooner the better” lest the Congressional clock for it runs out as the 2008 US presidential election campaign heats up.
Mukherjee later left for Washington to lead the Indian delegation to a meeting of the world’s 17 major economies Sep 27-28 to search for a new framework of a UN convention for energy security and climate change.
As Rice is hosting the Washington meeting, Mukherjee may well meet her again though another official meeting has not been scheduled.
In New York, Mukherjee also participated in a ministerial meeting of the India, Brazil, South Africa (IBSA) initiative and chaired an informal ministerial meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
In the IBSA meeting, Mukherjee and his counterparts, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim of Brazil and Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma of South Africa exchanged views on topics of mutual interest relating to the IBSA Dialogue Forum and the IBSA Fund for Alleviation of Poverty and Hunger, the Indian side said.
The ministers underlined their determination to strengthen political aspects of IBSA’s work, including focusing on reform of the United Nations, in particular the UN Security Council, calling for an immediate, elements-based, result-oriented intergovernmental negotiation to commence for expansion of the UN Security Council.
The meeting also discussed preparations for the second IBSA Summit in South Africa in October 2007.
At the SAARC Meeting, the participants heard a report of the work done since the last summit in New Delhi in April 2007 from the Secretary-General of SAARC.
Members the eight-nation group discussed the need to expand cooperation, taking into account the concrete projects set by previous summits and reviewing progress achieved thus far.
Mukherjee later hosted an iftar reception for participating SAARC delegations. Earlier, he had a series of bilateral meetings with his counterparts from Brazil and Israel, Secretary-General of NATO, and European Union High Representative, Javier Solana.
Mukherjee and Solana reviewed preparations for the forthcoming annual India-EU Summit, in the overall context of further expansion of the rapidly developing relationship, with particular emphasis on trade and economic aspects of India-EU relations.