WASHINGTON – Talks aimed at settling a U.S.-Indian civil nuclear cooperation deal continued Friday, two days after they had been scheduled to break up. U.S. officials said the extra negotiating time indicated goodwill and progress but predicted that no final agreement would be announced.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said negotiators had come closer to “narrowing some of the issues” in a deal that has been portrayed by the Bush administration as a landmark strategic partnership with a rising Asian power. He provided no details.

Negotiators planned to wrap up their meetings Friday. But Casey told reporters that “none of that should lead you to conclude that you’ll see an announcement of any kind made at the end of this.”

Late last year Congress approved a proposal to ship U.S. civilian nuclear fuel to India, a top priority of President Bush’s. Negotiators must now settle technical details on an overall cooperation plan.

Talks on that plan, however, have dragged on longer than either side had predicted, causing frustration among officials in both countries.

“There have been some tough issues. This is new ground for both of us,” Casey said. “But I certainly would take issue with the notion that these talks are somehow in trouble, or that we don’t ultimately feel confident that we’ll be able to reach an agreement.”

A major sticking point has been U.S. reluctance to allow India to reprocess spent atomic fuel, a crucial step in making weapons-grade nuclear materiel. Some fear that such an allowance would spark a nuclear arms race in Asia by allowing India to use the extra nuclear fuel that the deal would provide to free up its domestic uranium for weapons.

Late Thursday, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, the chief U.S. negotiator, said the sides had “overcome many of the outstanding issues.”

The nuclear deal would let the U.S. provide civil nuclear fuel and know-how to India in exchange for safeguards and U.N. inspections at India’s 14 civilian nuclear plants. Eight military plants would remain off-limits.

A service of the Associated Press(AP)