US did not coerce India over Iran, says Mulford

New Delhi: Former US Ambassador to India David Mulford on Friday said that the US did not arm-twist India over Iran in 2005, on the eve of the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s meeting with then US president George W Bush and US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice in New York.

According to a cable dated September 13, released by WikiLeaks and accessed by a national daily, then US envoy Mulford complained to Rice about the unhelpful attitude of senior Indian officials and advised her to encourage the Prime Minister to “exercise leadership.”

Mulford apparently wrote to Rice that “in my meetings with the foreign minister and foreign secretary (Shyam) Saran, I have found them reluctant to acknowledge that Iran could jeopardise both our nuclear initiative and India’s regional security interests.”

The Indo-US civil nuclear deal had apparently faced serious chances of being derailed because of India’s reluctance to take a tough stand on Iran. Mulford said he found Indian officials reluctant to acknowledge that Iran could jeopardise the Indo-US nuclear initiative.

In a television interview to a leading English news channel, Mulford—in the first American reaction to the leaked cables— said that he had nothing to say about the veracity of the cables. “I cannot comment on the veracity. Usually the cables from the US Embassy are correct,” he said.

He said the US did not coerce India into voting against Iran. “I told Saran that fence-sitting on Iran won’t help. I did not arm-twist India,” he said.

The Indian Express Limited