Nicholas Burns, one of the architects of the Indo-US nuclear deal, feels that Pakistan cannot expect a similar pact, a day after its Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani openly demanded from the US such a deal.
Burns also pressed for the speedy approval of the nuke deal ahead of the IAEA taking up the India-specific safeguards pact on Saturday for approval saying it was "good" for both the countries besides helping strengthen the non-proliferation regime.
"India's trust, its credibility, the fact that it has promised to create a state-of-the art facility, monitored by the IAEA, to begin a new export control regime in place, because it has not proliferated the nuclear technology, we can't say that about Pakistan." said Burns when asked whether the US will offer a nuclear deal with Pakistan on the lines of the Indo-US nuke deal during a panel debate on nuclear agreement at the Brookings Institution.
After meeting US President George W Bush, Gilani demanded from the US a nuclear deal similar to the one Washington has forged with New Delhi, assuring that the nuclear proliferation network of its scientist A Q Khan was broken and will not be repeated.
"There should be no preferential, there should be no discrimination. And if they want to give civilian nuclear status to India, we would also expect the same for Pakistan too," Gilani said at a gathering under the aegis of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Middle East Institute.