Condoleezza Rice to visit India tomorrow

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice will travel to India on Friday for a three-day visit, duringwhich the 123 agreement may be signed. The State Department said shewill meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and hold talks with External AffairsMinister Pranab Mukherjee, discussing a wide range of issues, including thecivil nuclear initiative. "They (Rice and Indian leaders) areobviously going to talk about the (civil nuclear) agreement and what it meansfor the relationship," Department Spokesman McCormack said. He,however, refused to say categorically whether the 123 agreement, which was todayoverwhelmingly approved by the US Congress, would be signed during Rice's visit.Sources in New Delhi, however, said the signing of the agreement washigh on the agenda of the visit. "The President has to sign it... Iwould expect that there will be a number of other administrative or bureaucraticsteps along the way... If there are any further events, you know, signings oranything else around this agreement in India, we'll let you know.... Right now Idon't have anything to announce," the Spokesman said. "I'm sure thatthere are going to be other things that, you know -- for example, enrolling abill for the president... to sign legislation. "And I'm sure on theIndian side perhaps there are other such things. But, again, I'm not going toconcern myself with those kind of bureaucratic things. It's not a questionwhether they are going to happen, but, you know, but when, and it's a matter ofpeople doing those things. So I'm not trying to indicate any obstacles to this,"McCormack said. On the nuclear deal, he said: "It, in our view, willmean a different kind of relationship between the United States and India fordecades to come."