The United States indicated on Friday that a controversial civilian nuclear agreement with India might not be ready by the time US President George W Bush makes his first visit to New Delhi in March. “It’s very hard to say,” Nicholas "Monty" Burns, the chief US negotiator of the deal, told reporters in Washington, when asked how far along would the landmark bilateral pact be when Bush made the trip. But he said that a complex plan requiring India to separate civilian and military nuclear programmes, a key component of the agreement, “might happen before the president’s visit”.Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed on the basic outline of the civil nuclear cooperation initiative in Washington in July last year and the two countries had hoped to seal an agreement before the president’s visit. “That remains our plan. And I’ve been in touch with the Indian government this week. I expect to be in touch with them in the coming days, and we hope to reach that goal,” Burns said.