Washington: The United States has asked India to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards and said both that New Delhi and Islamabad should maintain their nuclear moratoria to avoid a destabilising arms race.

"We would like to see India place all of its civilian facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards," State Department Director of Policy Planning Mitchell B Reiss said.

Reiss made the call, presumably knowing very well that India repeatedly rebuffed the US on this issue, in an address to a conference on "South Asia and the Nuclear Future" jointly organised by the Centre for International Security and Cooperation, the US Army War College and Stanford University.

He spoke there on June 4 but the text of his speech was made available by the State Department yesterday (Jun 7, 2004).

India and Pakistan, as States with nuclear capabilities, have obligations to each other and to the world, Reiss said.

"To each other, India and Pakistan owe the obligation to seek non-violent solutions to their political differences. We have urged both parties to maintain their nuclear moratoria, to refrain from assembling or deploying nuclear weapons, and to bring an early end to the production of fissile materials so as to avoid a costly and destabilising arms race," he said.