India voices concern over US- Pak nuke deal reports

India on Thursday voiced concern over reports of the US mulling a nuclear deal with Pakistan on the lines of the Indo- US pact and cited Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation record to oppose it.

“We have seen these reports and it is not for the first time this issue has surfaced. Whosoever is examining that particular dossier should be well aware of Pakistan’s track record in the area of proliferation. And when India got this particular deal it was on the basis of our own impeccable non- proliferation track record. That is the reason US gave us 123 agreement in 2005 and that is why we got a NSG waiver in 2008. Pakistan’s track record is completely different so we hope that will taken into account in making any such decision,” spokesperson in the external affairs ministry Vikas Swarup was quoted as saying in an apparent reference to Pakistan and North Kor- ea’s nuclear arms programme.

Ahead of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ’ s visit to the US this month, a report in the Washington Post said the US is negotiating a pact on new limits on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and delivery systems, a deal that might lead to an agreement similar to the Indo- US civil nuclear deal. “Pakistan has been asked to consider what are described as ‘ brackets’,” the report quoted a source familiar with the talks between the two countries as saying. To a separate query on whether Pakistan had asked India for a meeting between the two foreign ministers along with the meeting of their NSAs as was proposed by India on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, the spokesperson said, “Yes. There was an issue of sequencing. We are committed to the Ufa understandings.”