WASHINGTON, May 3: The United States said on Tuesday that it did not believe India and Pakistan were better off possessing nuclear weapons, but did not include the two South Asian nations among those criticized for violating the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

The assertion of US position on the nuclear issue, given at an afternoon briefing at the State Department, comes amid a major non-proliferation conference being held at the UN headquarters in New York. The conference, which will run through May 27, brings together top officials from across the world every five years to review the status of the NPT.

At the briefing in Washington, State Department’s spokesman Richard Boucher counted Libya, South Africa, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan among those nations who have agreed to get rid of their nuclear weapons

and said: “They’re all better off for it.”