The Obama administration has not entered into negotiations with Pakistan on a civilian nuclear deal similar to the one George W. Bush’s administration struck with India, according to US government sources. Earlier, Anne Patterson, the US ambassador to Pakistan, reportedly told a Los Angeles-based paper the US was considering "working-level talks" with the Pakistani government on a nuclear deal.

Longtime South Asia analysts in Washington have expressed support for such an agreement, but some point out that it would be a tough sell in the US Congress. “I’ve always favoured some kind of ‘deal’, but not one identical to the India deal," said Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institute. He told The Tribune a deal with Pakistan should be "criteria-based, and should include a commitment about present and future ‘good’ nuclear behaviour." Some US lawmakers are quick to point to the nuclear black market run by disgraced Pakistani scientist AQ Khan when making the case why Pakistan should not get a deal similar to the US-India pact.

Cohen contended punishment for past behaviour is not a useful strategy. "The US should be satisfied that it knows all it needs to know, privately or publicly, about past Pakistani nuclear transfers, and a N-deal should not be a reward for Pakistani cooperation on the Taliban," he said.

Marvin Weinbaum at the Middle East Institute said that politically, "It is a deliverable worth exploring." He believes a nuclear deal with Pakistan would perhaps begin to reverse the increasing bitterness toward the US in the Pakistani public. Recent public opinion polls find the US favourability among Pakistanis at its nadir. "This may be important because the top civilian and military elite are being more cooperative in dealing with the militants. But this may not be sustainable or progress much further without narrowing the gap between the elite's cautious policies and popular opinion, especially as it is being poisoned by the media," Weinbaum told The Tribune.

Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation said it was fairly unlikely that the US Congress would approve a civilian nuclear deal for Pakistan along the lines of the India deal. Weinbaum admitted the deal would be "a hard sell, though not impossible in the US Congress."

Pak Foreign Minister Makhdoom Mahmood Qureshi will be in Washington this week for the first ministerial-level US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue.