India declined to sell nuclear technology to Iran, Iraq and Libya

[Neil]

India declined to sell nuclear technology to Iran, Iraq and Libya in the 1980s in spite of being offered "huge" sums of money, said a leading defence journal.According to a report in the current issue of India Strategic, all the three countries offered "huge" sums in the early 1980s, but the then prime minister Indira Gandhi said a firm "No". Surprisingly, then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was most upset and when his persistent efforts yielded no response, he went to the extent of sending only a junior minister for her funeral.

Iran asked for nuclear technology as well as a military training school for its officers somewhere in India, again offering substantial monetary compensation for both, but Indira Gandhi said India would not play its friends against one another.

India had in fact been training Iraqi Air Force pilots, thanks to the commonality of the Soviet aircraft with the two countries. The defence cooperation had begun before the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, but Indian instructors, their number reaching 60 at one time, had no mandate except to continue the training programme in accordance with the relevant agreements.

"India and Iraq had strong military ties in the form of training and at one time, there were about 60 Indian Air Force (IAF) officers imparting training to their Iraqi friends on Soviet-supplied aircraft, common to both the countries. One of the Indian instructors was also given the highest possible award by President Saddam Hussein," India Strategic said.

Iran and Iraq were then in the thick of their long, eight-year war, which cost each side heavy casualties and meant no victory for any side. Gandhi's special envoy for the Gulf, Romesh Bhandari, in fact was then shuttling between the Iranian and Iraqi capitals of Teheran and Baghdad to forge peace.

Iraq in fact was supposed to host the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in 1983, but as Iran was not willing to participate in it in Baghdad, where a new conference hotel – Rasheed – had been set up by Swedish companies, the venue was moved to New Delhi at Bhandari's suggestion.

Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi also wanted nuclear technology and when India refused, he hassled the Indian companies and workers to pressure Gandhi. She did not budge, India Strategic report said.



'India declined to sell nuclear technology to Iran, Iraq and Libya' | idrw.org

 

[Yusuf]

Yes it's common knowledge. Gadaffi in particular offered a lot of money. India refused. He then tried his luck with Pakis and was lucky. A lot of the papers handed over to international inspectors after Libya gave up its nuke program revealed a lot. Gives an insight into Paki bombs too. That's why they say Paki bombs suck.

 

[Godless-Kafir]

Yusuf any links to paki papers found in Libya?

 

[Neil]

the best of the article was the way we are handling foreign issue...2 sworn enemies with common ally to each other....this can happen only with India...!!!
i mean iran and iraq are fighting a war we are training iraqi pilots and even then iran asks us to allow its officers to be trained in India....!!amazing...!!

presently iran israel issue....!!damn we r good when it comes to making friends...!!

 

[p2prada]

the best of the article was the way we are handling foreign issue...2 sworn enemies with common ally to each other....this can happen only with India...!!!
i mean iran and iraq are fighting a war we are training iraqi pilots and even then iran asks us to allow its officers to be trained in India....!!amazing...!!

presently iran israel issue....!!damn we r good when it comes to making friends...!!

Perks of being part of NAM.

On the other hand, the US considered us as enemies. Things changed a little after we opened up our economy and then completely turned around during Clinton's tenure regardless of the Nuclear sanctions.

 

[Godless-Kafir]

For 4 days there was no fuel in Chennai. There was huge Q in pumps, that is how important Iran is for us. If the Fuel also stops then we are screwed.

 

[Neil]

Perks of being part of NAM.

On the other hand, the US considered us as enemies. Things changed a little after we opened up our economy and then completely turned around during Clinton's tenure regardless of the Nuclear sanctions.

true p2p sire....one of the reason....but even iran iran being part of NAM were at war...so if either of this countries had used US logic of ''u r either with us or against us'' we should have been screwed...but we managed it pretty well....wish we applied such tactics with regard to pakis...!!

still dont understand what made clinton change his mind even after our nuclear test to forge strong ties....exceptional i would say...!!

 

[trackwhack]

Perks of being part of NAM.

On the other hand, the US considered us as enemies. Things changed a little after we opened up our economy and then completely turned around during Clinton's tenure regardless of the Nuclear sanctions.

There are some who think NAM was an illusion with more harm than benefits

 

[Cliff@sea]

I m for one who thinks NAM was an illusion,
but
i believe it did us more good than bad !

 

[ejazr]

The original article on which this article is based was published in StrategicIndia.in.

I posted this earlier in the Foreign Relations section here. Please combine if appropriate
http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/...try-into-nuclear-missile-control-regimes.html


The author has a 20+ year journalistic career mainly in the WANA region. One line that struck me as incisive was this

Many Arab leaders in fact used to regard Mrs Indira Gandhi as "the only man" among the Asian leaders, thanks to her statesmanship and the direction she steered the Non Aligned Movement into during her life. In 1981, UAE President Shaikh Zayed reportedly expressed his appreciation of Mrs Gandhi on these very lines during her visit to Abu Dhabi in May 1981.

 

[ejazr]

the best of the article was the way we are handling foreign issue...2 sworn enemies with common ally to each other....this can happen only with India...!!!
i mean iran and iraq are fighting a war we are training iraqi pilots and even then iran asks us to allow its officers to be trained in India....!!amazing...!!

presently iran israel issue....!!damn we r good when it comes to making friends...!!

Iran changed only after the overthrow of the shah under the "Islamic" revolution. Before that Iran under the shah was a close US ally and perhaps the only country that provided material support to Pakistan during the 65 and 71 wars. Although to be fair it was done mainly under US behest.

 

[ejazr]

There are some who think NAM was an illusion with more harm than benefits

NAM served a policy purpose because we were in a strategic environment where the Wester powers were committed to their support of Pakistan for various reasons. And we didn't want to alienate either side too much.

The situation doesn't exist now and our foreign policy should reflect and change according to the strategic environment.

 

[Yusuf]

Yusuf any links to paki papers found in Libya?

Libya, Iran, same thing. All goes back to Pak and thence to China.

Google is your friend. I saw TV documentaries on this quite some time back.

 

[Neil]

Iran changed only after the overthrow of the shah under the "Islamic" revolution. Before that Iran under the shah was a close US ally and perhaps the only country that provided material support to Pakistan during the 65 and 71 wars. Although to be fair it was done mainly under US behest.

true but iran iraq war was fought after the islamic revolution and considering that we had almost 60 trainers at a time in iraq is itself an indication of which side we wanted the war to be won....and still after all that iran asking us to train its troops is quite a diplomacy practiced by us....!!

 

[Yusuf]

true but iran iraq war was fought after the islamic revolution and considering that we had almost 60 trainers at a time in iraq is itself an indication of which side we wanted the war to be won....and still after all that iran asking us to train its troops is quite a diplomacy practiced by us....!!

India (Sub continent) has had historic ties with the people of those countries and goes way way back to both Mesopotamia and Persian civilization. People to people contact is immense and india has a large Iranian community and I am not talking about Parsis.