Striking an optimistic note, India on Saturday hoped civilian nuclear cooperation with the United States and other countries would become possible soon. This comes at a time when the Left is waving the red flag on the Indo-US nuclear deal. "We hope civil nuclear cooperation with the US and other countries will become possible soon... we hope to bring it to fruition soon,' Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said at the first International Institute for Strategic Studies-Citi India Global Forum. Menon underscored that the nuclear deal was "more of an immediate answer' to India's energy security needs and less a non-proliferation issue. On Iran, Menon said it was not in India's interest to have another nuclear weapons state in its neighbourhood, but Tehran had the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy subject to its international obligations. Menon said India had made it clear that while Iran might have the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy it also had an obligation to various international commitments it undertook. "Ultimately it is an issue of whether or not it is implementing the obligations it undertook. It depends on technical assessments which are best done by the IAEA,' he said. Emphasising the need to change the manner in which the world looks at non-proliferation, Menon favoured new international consensus on the issue. "We need to have a system in place to which Iran is a party...sanctions or military action