WASHINGTON, April 5: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Congress on Wednesday to ratify a deal to give India civil nuclear technology, saying the deal will not trigger an arms race in Asia. The past non-proliferation policies of the US did not achieve the goals as they resulted in a more isolated India and brought New Delhi and Islamabad to the brink of a nuclear war, she told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“They had no effect on India’s development of nuclear weapons. They didn’t prevent India and Pakistan from testing nuclear weapons in 1998,” she said.

“They contributed little to lessening regional tensions, which brought India and Pakistan repeatedly to the brink of war. And all of this simply resulted in a more isolated India, especially isolated from the standards and practices of the nuclear non-proliferation establishment.”

On the day Ms Rice appeared before the senate panel to defend the Indo-US nuclear deal, the Indian lobby in the US published a full-page advertisement in the Washington Post urging lawmakers to endorse the nuclear accord.