WASHINGTON: India and the US said they have agreed to build six American nuclear power plants in India, in a boost to bilateral civil nuclear energy cooperation.

The agreement came after two days of talks in Washington. The United States under President Donald Trump has been looking to sell more energy products to India, the world's third-biggest buyer of oil.

The two countries said this in a joint statement issued at the conclusion of the 9th round of India-US strategic security dialogue, co-chaired by foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale and Andrea Thompson, the US under secretary of state for arms control and international security, on Wednesday.

"They committed to strengthen bilateral security and civil nuclear cooperation, including the establishment of six US nuclear power plants in India," the joint statement said.

It gave no further details of the nuclear plant project.

The two countries have been discussing the supply of US nuclear reactors to energy-hungry India for more than a decade, but a longstanding obstacle has been the need to bring Indian liability rules in-line with international norms, which require the costs of any accident to be channelled to the operator rather than the maker of a nuclear power station.

Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse has been negotiating to build reactors in India for years, but progress has been slow, partly because of India's nuclear liability legislation, and the project was thrown into doubt when Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy in 2017 after cost overruns on US reactors.

Canada's Brookfield Asset Management bought Westinghouse from Toshiba in August 2018. Last April Westinghouse received strong support from US energy secretary Rick Perry for its India project, which envisaged the building of six AP1000 reactors in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

India and the US signed a historic agreement to cooperate in civil nuclear energy sector in October 2008. The deal gave a fillip to bilateral ties, which have been on an upswing since.

A major aspect of the deal was the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), that gave a special waiver to India enabling it to sign cooperation agreements with a dozen countries.

Post-waiver, India signed civil nuclear cooperation agreements with the US, France, Russia, Canada, Argentina, Australia, Sri Lanka, the UK, Japan, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan and South Korea.

India plans to triple its nuclear capacity by 2024 to wean Asia's third-largest economy off polluting fossil fuels.

Last October, India and Russia signed a pact to build six more nuclear reactors at a new site in India following summit talks between their leaders in New Delhi.

On Wednesday, the United States also reaffirmed its strong support to India's early membership in the 48-member NSG. Notably, China has blocked India's pending membership to the elite grouping that seeks to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons.

