Friday, March 3 2006 10:13 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Hard bargaining continued till the very end before Indian and American negotiators wrapped up the 'historic' nuclear deal under which 14 of the 22 nuclear power reactors will be subject to international safeguards.

Official sources said the last lap was very tough. The Indian side finally succeeded in convincing the Americans about some of their key concerns.

New Delhi's insistence that the Fast Breeder Reactor programme will not be placed under IAEA safeguards was finally accepted by US interlocutors.

US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, U S Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns and other key officials held intensive parleys with their Indian interlocutors M K Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran till late last night and held another round this morning.

India's plan to separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities will be undertaken in a phased manner and completed by 2014. This too was agreed to by the US.

The sources said that Washington, which had raised a number of questions, was pleased with the separation plan outlined by India.

In his recent statement in Parliament, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said that the separattion entails identifying in phases, a number of thermal nuclear reactors as civilian facilities to be placed under IAEA safeguards, amounting to roughly 65 per cent of the total installed thermal nuclear power capacity. This will be carried oiut by the end of the separation plan.