Anand Sharma with Condoleezza Rice in Singapore. (AFP)

Washington, July 24: When minister of state for external affairs Anand Sharma met US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice on the sidelines of the Asean Regional Forum, a shadowy figure danced around them in Singapore.

That figure was the unlucky 13: it represented the number of years it took for the US Congress to approve a 123 Agreement with China after president Ronald Reagan submitted it to the US Congress in 1985.

Although Rice and Sharma remembered the long delay, nobody here is of the view that it will take 13 years for the 123 Agreement between the Manmohan Singh government and the Bush administration to be cleared by the US Congress.

Rice and Sharma today discussed ways to minimise a 30-day consultation period on Capitol Hill and another 45 days allotted for committee work after Bush sends the “certified” nuclear deal back to the Congress.

When Bush extracted a promise from Congressional leaders during the negotiations that led to the passage of the Hyde Act limiting the time frame for consultations and committee work, it was considered a coup in New Delhi and in the White House.

But at that time, neither side had reckoned with Prakash Karat and the potential of the Left parties to delay and almost derail the nuclear deal.

The timetable agreed to by the US Congress was considered more than sufficient to have the nuclear deal operationalised during the life of the current American presidency and the Congress.

In addition, the Congress had agreed not to amend anything in the 123 Agreement, but to submit it to a straight “up or down” vote.

On her flight to Perth, Australia, after meeting Sharma, Rice today told reporters accompanying her that “it is certainly our hope that we can get through all the processes and get this done in the Congress, and we are going to work very expeditiously toward that goal”.

These were Rice’s first comments on the nuclear deal since the UPA government won a confidence vote in parliament on Tuesday.

Sources privy to the conversation between Rice and Sharma said one possible scenario in Washington would be to try to convince Congressional leaders to drop the 30-day requirement for consultations.

Since the 123 Agreement and the safeguards pact with the UN nuclear watchdog are in the public domain an effort will be made here to urge consultations on these documents right away instead of waiting for the whole package from Bush.

But getting Congressional leaders to give up their prerogative of 45 days of committee work may prove more difficult because the House Foreign Affairs Committee has new chairman, who is against the nuclear deal and its senior-most Republican, also new, is at best unenthusiastic about the deal.

Rice took Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith aboard her special flight from Singapore to Perth and worked hard on him about the need for Australia to support India in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which has to change its rules for global nuclear commerce before Bush can send the 123 Agreement to Congress.

Australia’s new government is made up of hard core non-proliferationists and Canberra has reversed the previous government's proposal to sell uranium to India.

After extended talks with Rice, the Australian foreign minister emerged before reporters on board the plane and said in a remarkable statement: “We regard the US-India civil nuclear agreement as separate from that (uranium sale) and we don’t regard our policy on exporting uranium as preventing us from joining a consensus in the NSG on supporting the arrangement.… We will be looking at the arrangement with a positive and constructive frame of mind.”