New Delhi, May 23: President Abdul Kalam accused India’s neighbours on Monday of forcing it to acquire nuclear weapons even as he hinted at his country’s continued rejection of the NPT. News reports quoted President Kalam, on a visit to Moscow, as also calling for closer cooperation between India, Russia and China to boost global prosperity.

His remarks on the nuclear issue are being seen as significant since they resemble the controversial explanation given by New Delhi to Washington for the May 1998 nuclear tests when it pointed to China as a threat. Monday’s comments by the Indian president had a similar ring, mainly as he appeared to have added Pakistan, without naming it, to the threat that was faced earlier from China.

“When we are surrounded by nuclear armed countries, we didn’t have any other alternative but to become nuclear,” President Kalam was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying.

If he did mean to indicate Pakistan as the reason for going nuclear will add an entirely new element to the Indian stand on the matter. Replying to questions from students and teachers of Moscow University, President Kalam added: “Nuclear weapons is not a good thing and India is for complete disarmament of these weapons.”

The Press Trust of India said that in his address to senior members of the Russian parliament, and later during an interaction with students and teachers of Moscow University, President Kalam maintained that India was working for total disarmament of nuclear weapons from the world.

“Though India has not signed Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, India is a non-proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and a responsible nation.”

He recalled that the Indian parliament had recently passed a bill called The Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of unlawful activities) Bill 2005.

“That emphatically confirms India will never be a proliferator,” President Kalam said.

He said the United States and Russia should set an example by reducing their nuclear arsenal.

“We have a nuclear doctrine where we have made it clear that India will abide by the ‘no first use’ policy of nuclear weapons,” President Kalam said.

He added that New Delhi was taking every possible step to make the world free of nuclear weapons. To achieve this, he said all countries should come out with the list of WMDs possessed by them.

United News of India said President Kalam called for a closer cooperation between India, Russia and China, even as the foreign ministers of the three countries are scheduled to hold their first-ever ‘stand-alone’ trilateral meeting in Vladivostok on June 2.

“Stronger relations between India, Russia and China would promote international prosperity,” President Kalam said in his address to scholars at the Moscow Oriental Institute.