Ties with US not at the cost of others:PM

On Board Air India One, Sept 12: Dismissing suggestions that India was isolated in the NAM, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said New Delhi was not seeking good with the United States at the cost of relations with other countries.

" There is no question of India being isolated. Our stand is fully in conformity with what our founding fathers of the Republic would have liked us to do it. Non-alignment is a state of mind with the ability to exercise an independent judgement on all issues, I think in that sense, non-alignment continues to have its relevance," he told reporters accompanying him on his visit to Brazil and Cuba.

Dr Singh said " I don't buy this argument that most members of NAM do not want relations with United States. And we are not seeking good relations with United States at the cost of other countries.

Our desire to normalise and expand relations with the US in no way contradicts or in no way runs counter to the interest of other countries." On Disarmament at the NAM summit, the Prime Minister said " As far as India is concerned, despite that fact that India is a nuclear weapon state, our commitment to disarmament remains strong.

And that's our civilizational heritage. From Gandhiji, Jawaharlal Nehru to Rajiv Gandhi made concrete proposals for disarmament at UN General Assembly." He said India would update these ideas and present them to the General Assembly this year. "So there should not be any doubt that we are fully in support of any initiative which will help to promote universal nuclear disarmament. But one has to be realistic enough to recognise that this is not going to happen overnight. So any NAM initiative would have our support," he added.

UNI

Related Stories