"We are not looking at a deadline. We know the timetable, we know what to do," Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said when asked about the US pushing India to conclude the deal at the earliest.

Speaking after his meeting with US Under Secretary of Commerce Mario Mancuso on hi-tech exports, Menon said the government was trying and ‘hoping’ to wrap up the agreement with IAEA as soon as possible.

“But these are negotiations. They take two hands to clap,” he said.

The comments came a day after US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said the ‘clock is ticking’ and India needed to conclude talks with IAEA and seek exemptions from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) at the earliest.

"The clock is ticking in terms of how much time is available to get all the different aspects of an agreement implemented," Gates had said.

He made the deadline clear as he had said that ‘with this being an election year, there is an open question about how long the Senate will be in session beyond this summer and September’.