RPK
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..:: India Strategic ::. Nuclear: India declined to sell nuclear technology to Iran, Iraq and Libya
New Delhi. India declined to sell nuclear technology to Iran, Iraq and Libya.
All the three countries offered “huge” sums in the early 1980s, but the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi said a firm “NO.”
Iran asked for nuclear technology as well as a military training school for its officers somewhere in India, again offering substantial monetary compensation for both, but Mrs Gandhi said that India would not play its friends in the Gulf against each other.
India had in fact been training Iraqi air force pilots, thanks to the commonality of the Soviet aircraft with the two countries. The defence cooperation had begun well before the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, but Indian instructors, their number reaching 60 at one time, had no mandate except to continue the ongoing training programme in accordance with the relevant agreements.
Iran and Iraq were then in the thick of their long, 8-year war, which cost each side heavy casualties and meant no victory. Mrs Gandhi’s special envoy for the Gulf, Mr Romesh Bhandari was then shuttling between the Iranian and Iraqi capitals of Teheran and Baghdad to forge peace.
Iraq in fact was supposed to host the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in 1983, but as Iran was not willing to participate in it in Baghdad, where a new conference hotel – Al Rasheed – had been built by Swedish companies, the venue was moved to New Delhi at Mr Bhandari’s suggestion.
Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi also wanted nuclear technology, and when India refused, he hassled the Indian companies and workers to pressure Mrs Gandhi. She did not budge.
Many Arab leaders in fact used to regard Mrs Indira Gandhi as "the only man" among the Asian leaders, thanks to her statesmanship and the direction she steered the Non Aligned Movement into during her life. In 1981, UAE President Shaikh Zayed reportedly expressed his appreciation of Mrs Gandhi on these very lines during her visit to Abu Dhabi in May 1981.
I was a member of her media delegation, and was told of this observation by a senior UAE minister.
There were similar sentiments about her in Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and several other Arab countries which I visited periodically over the years.
© India Strategic
New Delhi. India declined to sell nuclear technology to Iran, Iraq and Libya.
All the three countries offered “huge” sums in the early 1980s, but the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi said a firm “NO.”
Iran asked for nuclear technology as well as a military training school for its officers somewhere in India, again offering substantial monetary compensation for both, but Mrs Gandhi said that India would not play its friends in the Gulf against each other.
India had in fact been training Iraqi air force pilots, thanks to the commonality of the Soviet aircraft with the two countries. The defence cooperation had begun well before the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, but Indian instructors, their number reaching 60 at one time, had no mandate except to continue the ongoing training programme in accordance with the relevant agreements.
Iran and Iraq were then in the thick of their long, 8-year war, which cost each side heavy casualties and meant no victory. Mrs Gandhi’s special envoy for the Gulf, Mr Romesh Bhandari was then shuttling between the Iranian and Iraqi capitals of Teheran and Baghdad to forge peace.
Iraq in fact was supposed to host the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in 1983, but as Iran was not willing to participate in it in Baghdad, where a new conference hotel – Al Rasheed – had been built by Swedish companies, the venue was moved to New Delhi at Mr Bhandari’s suggestion.
Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi also wanted nuclear technology, and when India refused, he hassled the Indian companies and workers to pressure Mrs Gandhi. She did not budge.
Many Arab leaders in fact used to regard Mrs Indira Gandhi as "the only man" among the Asian leaders, thanks to her statesmanship and the direction she steered the Non Aligned Movement into during her life. In 1981, UAE President Shaikh Zayed reportedly expressed his appreciation of Mrs Gandhi on these very lines during her visit to Abu Dhabi in May 1981.
I was a member of her media delegation, and was told of this observation by a senior UAE minister.
There were similar sentiments about her in Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and several other Arab countries which I visited periodically over the years.
© India Strategic
. He goes to Pakistan
