N-deal for 'sui generis' India only: Rice

WASHINGTON: India got its civil nuclear deal with the US despite its strategic nuclear programmes because it is "sui generis" - Latin for "of its own kind" - so suggests US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"I think India is really sui generis. It is a state that has had - really, very good proliferation record," she told reporters Friday on her way to New Delhi when asked if the India deal would in any sense serve as a model for other countries seeking a similar deal.

"Obviously, it posed some challenges because of its strategic nuclear programmes," she said, but believed that the approval of the deal by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), and ultimately, the Congress, was a recognition of what the nuclear watchdog agency's head had said.

Rice cited IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei as saying that "bringing India and Indian civil nuclear programmes and facilities and their future into the IAEA framework is a win for the proliferation regime as a whole."

"I think India is, in many ways, sui generis in that regard," she added.