Briefing reporters on the Prime Minister's three-day visit, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, however, did not give details of what they would discus but said the government would like to go ahead with the deal "as soon as we can" but it was not possible to give a timeframe for it.

"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," he said adding the US was committed to getting India exemption from the Nuclear Suppliers Group for nuclear commerce under the July, 2005 civil nuclear cooperation agreement.

Menon said India was in touch with members of the NSG and it would proceed on the deal "as soon as we can". Many of the world leaders who would be attending the Hokkaido summit are also members of the NSG, he added.

Asked about US Congressman Gary Ackerman's comments that time was running out for the deal, he said he would like to get into the issue of timeframe.

"We would like to go ahead with it. We go ahead with it as soon as we can," he added.

To a question on the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project, Menon said India would continue discussions with the Iran and Pakistan to ensure that the project was commercially and economically viable and to ensure its security. Bilateral discussions with the two countries would also continue, he said.

On the sidelines of the summit for which he starts on Monday, several bilateral discussions are scheduled for the Prime Minister with leaders of the G-8 and those from the outreach countries like China, Brazil and South Africa.

The G-8-G-5 meeting in Japan will review the Heilegendamm dialogue process where issues like climate change and energy security will come up for discussion.

On the multilateral side, the leaders will work on an outcome document that will again cover issues like energy and food security and climate change.

India has been attending the G-8 outreach meetings from 2003 and an important outcome of the last year's G-8 summit in Heiligendamm in German was the initiative to launch a high-level dialogue between the G8 and the five outreach countries to be completed by the next year's summit in Italy. Issues covered by the dialogue are innovation in terms of technology transfer, energy efficiency and development.

Multilateral meeting will focus on the agreed framework on climate change after starting from Rio, Kyoto and Bali summits and the long term goals.

India hopes that as a result of discussions it would be possible to implement its ideas on climate change. India's approach is that developed countries should limit their carbon emissions much below their present levels, which they are not doing and developing countries would do their bit to mitigate the emissions.

Menon said India has also come out with its national action plan for climate change and it would like to see an international framework for climate change and work for this.