After another round of inconclusive talks with its wavering left-wing allies, officials from the dominant Congress party said the atomic energy pact would be discussed again after another four weeks.

Leaders "expressed the hope that the issues currently before it would be addressed in an appropriate manner and the operationalisation of the deal will take into account the committee's findings," Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said.

The committee made up of members of the ruling Congress party and leftist groups opposed to the deal would meet again on November 16 to resolve differences, the minister said after the panel met Monday.

The Congress party of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appeared to buckle last week under opposition from its leftist allies, who had threatened to withdraw their support and force early elections if the pact went ahead.

"The committee continued its deliberations in a constructive and cordial atmosphere," Mukherjee said.

The prime minister has argued the accord, which would bring India into the loop of global atomic energy commerce, would help meet the future energy needs of an economy steaming along with an annual growth rate of nine percent.

But the communists say the deal, which would involve India being subjected to more international safeguards including inspections, could harm the country's nuclear weapons programme.

They are also opposed to closer political and strategic ties with Washington.

Ahead of the talks, the deputy head of the Communist Party of India, D. Raja, told AFP that left-wing parties would be pushing for the government "to state its position clearly, to tell us whether the nuclear deal is on hold or not."

A senior official from the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which also props up the government in parliament, Sitaram Yechury, told reporters that the left would review its position after Monday's talks.

He said the government needed to make clear "how it wishes to proceed and on that basis, we will take our future decisions."

The Congress party has been giving conflicting signals over the future of the deal over the past week, and the latest delay means that the future of the accord is still uncertain.

Last week Singh told US President George W. Bush that New Delhi was having trouble implementing the deal due to leftist opposition, and went on to admit that "one has to take certain disappointments."

But once the deal was being described as dead, Singh said he was still hopeful of a compromise.

According to political analyst Neerja Chowdhury, there could be three explanations for the prime minister's seemingly contradictory statements.

"One is that he has had enough. He is feeling let down by his alliance partners within the government and the Communists," she said.

"The second is that the Congress is keeping the talks going with the Communists as a face saver to saying that the deal has been shelved.

"The third is that the Congress could keep the talks going" ahead of elections in December in the western state of Gujarat, she said.

Various opinion polls have indicated that the Congress would win enough seats in the national parliament to form a government on its own -- but Indian opinion polls are also notorious for their unreliability.

"If Congress does well in the (Gujarat) polls, the government could call for elections" even if their allies are not prepared for it, she said.

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