New Delhi, July 6 (ANI): Prime Minister Manamohan Singh would leave for G-8 summit in Hokkaido in Japan on Monday where he is expected to meet US President George W. Bush.
Singh is expected to discuss the progress of the Indo-US nuclear deal with Bush.
Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon on Friday told reporters here that the Indian government would like to go ahead with the deal, but cannot give timeframe.
"We will go ahead with it as soon as we can. Once we take a decision to approach the IAEA, we will let you know. The US was committed to getting India exemption from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) for nuclear commerce under July 2005 civil nuclear cooperation agreement," he said.
Menon said India was in touch with the NSG and would proceed on the deal as early as possible.
Many world leaders going to attend the Hokkaido summit are also the members of the NSG, he added.
The Prime Minister, during his three-day visit, would discuss various topics including climate change, energy and food security with G-8 leaders and those from the outreach countries like China, Brazil and South Africa.
India has been attending G-8 outreach meetings since 2003 and an important outcome of the last year's G-8 summit in Heiligendamm in Germany was the initiative to launch a high-level dialogue between the G-8 and the five-outreach countries to be completed at next year's summit in Italy.
Menon said India has also come out with a national action plan for climate change and it would like to see an international framework for climate change in place and would work for this.
The action plan declares that India's greenhouse emissions will not be more than the emissions of developed countries.
Climate change, energy & food security will be India's focus at G-8: PM
Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh said here today that at the G-8 outreach summit, he will present India's perspectives on a wide range of global issues including state of the world economy, development, trade, transfer of technology, energy security and food security.
Dr. Singh in a statement on the eve of his departure to Japan conveyed to the international community that climate change, energy security and food security are interlinked, and require an integrated approach.
Prior to the meeting with the G-8 leaders, he will attend a meeting of outreach countries being hosted by the President of Mexico on July 8.
"Over the years, India's participation in the G-8 and outreach countries dialogue process has enabled it to articulate its concerns on a wide range of issues in a forthright manner, on an equal footing," Dr. Singh said.
The Prime Minister said he would also participate in the meeting of the leaders of major economies at which the issue of climate change will be high on the table.
He said that there could be no solution to the issue without taking into account the developmental imperatives and aspirations of developing economies.
Dr. Singh said that he is also looking forward to participating in an informal meeting of the Brazil-Russia-India-China (BRIC) leaders on the sidelines of the G-8 Summit.
On the sidelines of the summit Dr. Singh will have discussions with the leaders of Russia, China, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Canada, Indonesia, Australia and the UN Secretary General.
The Prime Minister will also meet the US President George Bush on Wednesday, which is being considered a crucial bilateral meeting to give the much-needed political push to the Indo-US civil nuclear deal. (ANI)
