Both countries would continue discussions on the subject, he added. "We have made some progress. More progress has to be made. There are some difficulties before us. But given the goodwill about India (in the US Congress), we can reach an agreement," Burns said. Saran said that given the goodwill about India in the US, Congress and other circles, India was led to believe that there was a very "very pervasive feeling of support." "We are reasonably hopeful that it will receive positive response from the Congress." To a question on whether the US Congress was linking the nuclear agreement with the Iran nuclear issue, Saran said, "The civilian nuclear energy cooperation stands on its own merits...we are will receive positive response from the Congress." Earlier in his opening remarks, Saran said the two had, over the past two days, "very friendly and very intensive discussions" on a whole range of issues. He said he had shared with Burns some preliminary ideas on separation of civilian and military nuclear facilities. He said he had also discussed some other components like the safeguards aspect, the scope of cooperation and a number of issues. "This meeting enabled us to carry forward in much greater detail and we have today much better understanding of US perspectives. We need to discuss this in greater detail. The dialogue will be continued. These were extremely useful discussions. We need to have more discussions." He said India had shared with the US some of the plans for expansion of civilian nuclear energy. Saran said they had exchanged views on several other issues like Iran and the situation in Nepal and Sri Lanka. He believed that since President Bush would be visiting India, his visit would provide an opportune moment to exchange notes on regional and global issues. Burns said in his opening remarks that both sides would have to work out for the next several weeks to see that they were successful. "We hope we can. It (the agreement) will have enormous benefits for India. Our government will try to have the agreement before Bush's arrival in India." He said President Bush would lay a broad foundation for partnership in various areas. "We do consider India a global partner." Amid growing pressure from the US and the EU to join hands with them in reporting Iran to the UN as a prelude to imposing sanctions, New Delhi has said it supports "as broad a consensus as possible" over the tricky issue. "We are extremely supportive of the EU initiative to engage Iran to find an amicable settlement," Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said at a joint press interaction with US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nichols Burns. The EU maintains that while it supports referral of Iran to the council, it wants to leave the door open for Tehran to come back to the negotiating table. Reiterating India's commitment to having good relations with Iran, Saran said: "We have longstanding civilizational relations with Iran. We would not like a situation of confrontation to develop in a region that is close to us." "We back all efforts to develop as broad a consensus as possible on the issue," he said in response to Burns' advocacy of a Security Council referral for Iran. PIN/IRNA