Washington: As the US Senate and House conferees held their first meeting on the India-US nuclear deal, a key Congressional leader assured the Indian prime minister that they were working on the issues of concern to India. 

Senate Republican majority leader William H. Frist put the India deal among the top priorities of the lame-duck session Tuesday after a telephone call with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh regarding the shape of the enabling legislation. 

"I assured Prime Minister Singh that one of my top priorities for the remainder of this Congress is to enact this legislation, and I told him I am confident that we will be able to complete congressional action on it this week," he told the Senate. 

"Prime Minister Singh stressed that there are a number of provisions in the House and Senate-passed bills that are problematic for the Indian government because they depart from the understanding reached with President Bush on this issue on July 18, 2005," Frist said in a more detailed statement later. 

"We discussed several of these provisions, and I assured him that the conferees are well aware of the Indian government's concerns. I noted that I had appointed myself as a conferee in order to be able to participate personally in the process of refining the legislation, and assured him that we are working on the issues of concern to India" he said. 

"The enactment of this legislation will lead to a much more friendly and robust relationship between the United States and India. I told him we share that objective and are working hard to produce legislation that would help our two nations achieve it," said Frist. 

Six Senate conferees later held their first meeting with their three counterparts from the House: Republican House Majority Leader John Boehner, International Relations Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde and ranking Democrat Tom Lantos. 

"This legislation is a cornerstone of the President's vision for a new strategic partnership between the United States and India that will promote greater regional and international stability," Hyde said. 

"The agreement would allow the US to sell technology to India for civil nuclear power, while in return, India will separate its nuclear facilities used for civilian purposes from its military facilities, open several of its nuclear facilities to international inspections, agree not to test nuclear weapons and strengthen its nuclear export controls, among other provisions," he said. 

Meanwhile, a senior Bush administration official too hoped that the lawmakers would address the concerns expressed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about provisions that New Delhi viewed as 'moving the goal-posts.' 

Rice has been making some calls, and her letters to members that reflect the Administration and India's concerns, were "being taken seriously," and hopefully some change in language would alleviate these concerns when the final legislation is worked out, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher told reporters Tuesday. 

"Everybody wants to see the legislation passed. Everybody we've talked to on the Hill has worked very hard to try and accomplish that, "he said. 

Asked if the language and reporting requirements in the specific sections like 105, 106 and 107 that India had a major problem with would undergo changes to address New Delhi's concerns, Boucher said, "They are taking the Secretary's letter seriously and I guess the only way I can deal with the specific sections is to tell you that there are sections in this bill that people on the Hill feel very strongly about." 

He said, "We've found a certain flexibility, a certain willingness to look at other ways in expressing these views. Expressing a sense without binding or intruding upon the ability to carry out the agreement," as negotiated between India and the United States as spelt out in the July 18, 2005 US-India Joint Statement and the March 3, 2006 statement following President Bush's visit to New Delhi. 

He said the administration had also been providing ideas to deal with some of these concerns in a way that could be acceptable to all parties in order to ensure that the agreement would not start coming apart. 

However, Boucher indicated that India would probably have to live with the reporting requirements in some provisions saying, "I think all of us understand there will be reporting requirements. Congress always expects the administration to keep them informed about things. We try to do that, we try to do that regularly." 

"But I know what India is concerned about in some cases that reporting requirements seem to indicate there is conditionality involved. But I don't think there's any conditionality," he said. 

Boucher indicated that these conditions would kick in only if the terms of the agreement were found to have been violated by the annual presidential certifications required by Congress, but as he saw it there were no ironclad conditions in the bills adopted overwhelmingly by both the House and Senate. 

A group of six Democrats, meanwhile, have asked Hyde and Lantos to make sure that non-proliferation provisions contained in the Senate and House bills are included in the final legislation. 

"This has always been a bad deal. It's a nuclear giveaway to India that strikes a harsh blow to efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and technology. Now President Bush trying his best to make it even worse," group leader Edward Markey said in a letter to the House panel.