NEW DELHI (TIP): Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will participate in the United Nations General Assembly(UNGA) in New York in the month of September but the highlight of his visit will be his bilateral meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington DC. The US has finally confirmed the dates for PM Manmohan Singh’s visit from September 25 to 30, government sources said.

The confirmation of the dates has come as a huge relief for the Indian side as south block wanted the bilateral meeting to take place during Singh’s visit for United Nations General Assembly. This is what Indian officials had conveyed to US after Obama invited Singh for what is going to be their second bilateral meeting in US capital. The meeting in September, they said, would spare PM the trouble of traveling to the US for the second time in quick succession as his participation in UNGA was certain.

As secretary of state John Kerry said during his visit to India in June, India and U.S. are looking to finalize a commercial agreement between NPCIL and Westinghouse for a nuclear reactor in Gujarat. If the 2 countries can circumvent India’s contentious nuclear liability law and conclude negotiations by then, it would be the main takeaway from Singh’s meeting with Obama.

Both sides are trying hard to fight the gloom enveloping the ties between them and realize that one way of doing this is by encashing the civil nuclear agreement. Talking about the significance of Obama’s invite to Singh, foreign minister Salman Khurshid had said earlier that it is only befitting Singh’s reputation as having nurtured the India-US relations that he visit the US in the final year of UPA II.