New Delhi, March 20: As India and the US get set to begin their first round of talks on the nitty-gritty of implementing the nuclear agreement later this week, visiting energy secretary Samuel Bodman today rejected any link between the talks and Delhi’s relations with Iran.

Bodman, who met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this evening, is to travel to Mumbai on Thursday and the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Anil Kakodkar, will take him on an unusual guided tour of the Tarapur nuclear plant.

The Tarapur trip will get considerable attention, especially as Kakodkar has been in the forefront of advocating a tough line on the 123 Agreement — so called because it is under Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act — which is to set out in detail the actual implementation of the nuclear deal.

The nuclear energy talks starting Friday that will result in the 123 Agreement the two countries will sign are the first after the US Congress passed its legislation on the deal.

India’s right to reprocess fuel that the US will supply to nuclear reactors that are under international safeguards is one of the issues that will figure high in the negotiations.

Delhi would like the spent fuel to be reused or reprocessed in the fast breeder reactor, which it has agreed to put under safeguards.

Highly placed sources said India will seek an exception to the US domestic law which does not allow spent fuel to be reprocessed, barring in the cases of Japan, Switz- erland and the Euratom agency.

India has so far simply been storing the spent fuel, not putting it to any further use, the sources said. At Tarapur, Kakodkar could point out to Bodman the benefits of using the spent fuel.

The Prime Minister has said in Parliament that India will not relinquish its right to reprocess fuel. With Russia and France already on board, Delhi would like to convince the Americans that it is better for both parties to allow the reprocessing to take place, especially as the spent fuel could pile up in alarming quantities in the time to come.

Another issue on the agenda is the nature of the moratorium on testing. While Kakodkar & Co would like India not to give up its right to conduct a nuclear test, Washington would try to bind India legally so that if it does, all future nuclear ties would come to an end.

Ahead of the talks, Bodman told the media, in answer to a question, that there was “no link” between the impending nuclear discussions and India’s relationship with Iran.

External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee will visit the US in the first week of April.