Rao wanted no-nuclear weapons pact with Pakistan: US Senator

Lalit K Jha

Washington, Sep 18 (PTI) Three years before Pokhran II
nuclear tests, India was interested in negotiations with
Pakistan on elimination of atomic weapons from the
subcontinent and was receptive to US mediation in this regard,
an influential American Senator claimed Friday.

Senator Arlen Spector has claimed that the then Indian
Prime Minister Narasimha Rao was interested in working out
such a deal with Pakistan. The Senator said this in a letter
written to the then US President Bill Clinton on August 28,
1995.

Excerpts of this letter were released to the media
Friday, which was also read out by him on the floor of the US
Senate.

Spector wrote to Clinton from Damascus on his way back
from his trip to Indian national capital New Delhi and
Islamabad during which he met Narasimha Rao and late Pakistani
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Spector claimed that both Rao and Bhutto were
receptive to the idea of US mediation in this regard.

"From our conversations with Prime Minister Rao and
Prime Minister Bhutto, it is my sense that both would be very
receptive to discussions initiated and brokered by the United
States as to nuclear weapons and also delivery missile
systems," Spector said reading out from the letter. MORE PTI