Though the deal had been conceptualised and agreed upon, there were many, many issues that needed to be thrashed out.
Enter the backroom boys -- US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs R Nicholas Burns and his counterpart, then Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran.
The two men sat down to narrow down the differences. The first signs of opposition in the US came in the form of the separation plan. India agreed to the plan to separate its military and civilian nuclear reactors.
Then came veiled suggestions that India might gain some brownie points with the United States by distancing itself from Iran. The US had branded Iran as a rogue State and was calling for Tehran to abandon its controversial nuclear programme. It was also pushing for an International Atomic Energy Agency resolution recommending that Iran be referred to the United Nations Security Council.
India voted against Iran and this led to some tension between the two friends of many decades.
The misgivings of the Left parties back home were taken care of and the Burns-Saran team set on its next mission. Get the deal in a working form before President Bush's visit to India in March 2006.
The two diplomats worked overtime, each making several visits to the other country, convincing the critics of the deal.
With Bush's visit, an agreement containing all the conditions that both sides would need to satisfy the respective critics in both countries was signed.
The ball was back in the US court.
Image: US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs R Nicholas Burns (right) and then Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, now India's special envoy on the India-US nuclear deal, during a meeting in New Delhi in January.
Photograph: Raveendran/AFP/Getty Images
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