Washington: United States had taken steps to strengthen its ties with India and Pakistan to advance its regional goals and these moves should not be seen as US accepting the South Asian nations as nuclear weapon States under the Non Proliferation Treaty, a senior State department official has said.

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"We have taken steps recently with both countries (India and Pakistan) to strengthen relations in order to advance our regional goals, enhance the fight against terrorism, and to secure cooperation from both countries on export controls.

"These steps should not, however, be taken to suggest that we have 'accepted' the status of either country as a nuclear weapon state under the NPT. We have not," US Assistant Secretary of State for Non-proliferation John S Wolf said at the third session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2005 Review Conference of the Treaty in New York on Tuesday (May 4, 2004). He said the US would not reward either country for their decisions to acquire nuclear weapons or for the 1998 tests.

"Our focus in South Asia has been and remains on preventing actions that would undermine the global non-proliferation regime and regional stability be it through nuclear testing, deployment, nuclear use, or proliferation to other countries," Wolf said.

"We hope that India, Israel and Pakistan would eventually join the Treaty as non-nuclear weapon States, he said adding India and Pakistan remained ineligible under the US law and policy for any significant assistance to their nuclear programs.

Wolf said the US also urged Pakistan to continue to take steps necessary to end the activities of the dangerous nuclear proliferation network spawned by A Q Khan.

"It is up to Pakistan and numerous other countries in which this multinational network operated to take the necessary measures to shut down the network and to implement comprehensive measures to prevent any recurrence.

Wolf said that US believes Khan's network took advantage of weak laws, and weak enforcement.

"We urge the countries involved to review and strengthen their export controls and their capabilities to administer new controls," he said.