WASHINGTON, July 19: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a gibe at Pakistan in his joint address to the US Congress saying that there were countries in India’s neighbourhood that indulged in ‘unchecked nuclear proliferation’.

Mr Singh, who was given the rare honour of addressing a joint congressional session a day after signing a historical nuclear deal with the US, said that India had ‘never been, and never will be a source of proliferation of sensitive technologies’.

Touting India’s ‘impeccable record’ of adhering to non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Mr Singh said: “We have adhered scrupulously to every rule and canon in this area. We have done so even though we have witnessed unchecked nuclear proliferation in our own neighbourhood which has directly affected our security interests.”

India needs support from both houses of the US Congress for the adoption of the deal President George W. Bush and Mr Singh signed on Monday, which is seen as a virtual recognition of India as a nuclear weapon state.

The deal could run into a problem with Congress — and also the 40-member Nuclear Suppliers Group — on the ground that it could undermine Washington’s credibility and even-handedness when dealing with countries like North Korea or Iran.

Some US lawmakers are already saying that rewarding India after it tested nuclear weapons would be unfair to countries like Japan and Brazil that had the ability to conduct nuclear tests but refrained from doing so out of respect for international non-proliferation regimes.

In only the eighth such appearance by a foreign visitor in the House chamber in the last five years, Mr Singh told lawmakers that the objective of his trip here was ‘to lay the basis for transformed ties between our two great countries’.