Wednesday, May 17 2006 11:33 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: Debunking the notion that India was involved in any major defence trade or relationship with Iran, the US has said any judgement of New Delhi's ties with Tehran should be on the same yardstick as that of any other American ally like Japan or European countries.

US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns also stressed that when it came to Iran what mattered to Washington was really how other countries treated Tehran on the nuclear issue.

"I would ask that India be judged by the United States on the same basis that we judge all of our allies--Japan, all the European allies. The European allies, all 25 of them, have full diplomatic relations with Iran, many of them have multibillion dollar commercial trade relations.

"They have normal relations across the board, so does Japan. So somehow paying attention that India is the only country in the world talking to Iran. I think would be wrong," Burns said at the Carnegie Endowment after giving an address on 'US-India Relations:The Global Partnership'.

He said there is a need to look at India's behaviour and judge it in relation to other countries not just look at it in isolation.

Referring to a media report not too long ago that said India was involved in training Iranian Navy, he said, "The Defence News story in our view was wrong. The Indian government tells us they do not have a significant defence trade relationship with Iran.the figures are insignificant on an annual basis. The particular vessel was filled with teenage Iranian cadets and they indeed played volleyball, may be it was football or soccer.It was a visit of cadets."

Observing that India like other European allies has a diplomatic, economic and cultural relationship with Iran, Burns said they should all be judged on the same basis.

"What matters to us is how countries have treated Iran on the nuclear issue. India broke away from the non aligned consensus on September 23, 2005 and voted along with the majority including the United States to rebuke Iran and to warn Iran that it should not proceed with its subsequent conversion and diversion programmes.

"India voted for a second time on Feb 4, 2006 at the IAEA Board of Governors Meeting with an increasing majority to rebuke Iran a second time," Burns remarked.

Describing India's vote in September as 'very courageous' and that too without a lot of support from the rest of the non aligned countries, he said "It is fair to judge India on those votes since what concerns most Americans is whether our friends would support Iran or look the other way as Iran seeks to develop weapons capability."

"We can't task India against a standard that we don't task other countries," Burns said.