WASHINGTON: US President George W Bush telephoned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during when the two leaders expressed a desire to move forward on the nuclear deal "as expeditiously as possible." "Both leaders expressed their desire to see the US-India civil nuclear issue move forward as expeditiously as possible," US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in a statement, two days after Manmohan Singh's government won a trust vote in Parliament getting the mandate to push the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Johndroe said Bush also told Singh "he looks forward to continuing to work with his government to strengthen the United States India strategic relationship." Bush's telephone call came two days after the White House warmly praised Singh for "soldiering on" with the Indo-US nuclear deal despite some political opposition in India. Bush and Singh also touched upon the stalled World Trade Organizations talks and discussed the need for leading trading countries to contribute to a breakthrough in the Doha round.

"The President and Prime Minister Singh also discussed the importance of all leading WTO Members making contributions to a breakthrough that will put the Doha Round negotiations on a path to conclude an ambitious agreement before the end of the year," Johndroe added.

Senior officials of the Bush administration have said that the United States would be at work both in the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group(NSG) as also when the package is ready to be presented to the Congress for final approval which is expected before the year end.