Describing the deal finalised during US President George W Bush's recent India visit as "ill timed," The New York Times said in an editorial that it "undercuts some of the most powerful arguments Washington can make to try to galvanise international opposition to Iran's nuclear adventurism."
The paper, however, supported Bush for telling Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf that the US could not sign such a deal with Islamabad. "It would be an unthinkably bad idea to grant a loophole to a country (Pakistan) whose top nuclear scientist (A Q Khan) helped transfer nuclear technology to leading rogue states (Iran, North Korea, Libya). Granting India a loophole that damages a vital treaty and lets New Delhi accelerate production of nuclear bombs makes no sense either."
The daily insisted that the Indo-US pact threatens to blast a "bomb-size loophole through" the NPT.
The deal, the Times said, would have been "bad enough on its own and disastrously ill timed" but the "most immediate damage was done" on Bush's next stop, Pakistan.
"Sticking Mr Musharraf with the unwelcome task of explaining to Pakistanis why his friend and ally, Mr Bush, had granted favourable nuclear terms to... India, while withholding them from Pakistan left him less likely to do Washington any special, and politically unpopular, favours on the terrorism front," it said.