Washington, Sept 27 (PTI) Making it clear that the situations surrounding the nuclear programmes of India and Iran are "simply very different," the US Tuesday said that no comparison can be made between the two as New Delhi has been "very good" on proliferation matters "for its entire history."
"The situations are just simply very different. And I think most people believe that India can be as a part of a broad proliferation regime actually helpful to the non-proliferation effort. I don't think there are many people who believe that about Iran," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview with the New York Post.

"...I've never been one who believes that in international politics every situation is the same. It's not. And you know, I know people make the argument about precedents and I just have to say to people, look, the situations are simply different," she said.

The top State Department official went on to explain what the Bush administration has been saying all along--that Iran has a "terrible" non proliferation record and among other things had been dealing with the known Pakistani proliferator A.Q.Khan.

"With Iran you have a state that signed onto the NPT, has been violating its obligations, including enriching without telling anybody at Natanz; has a terrible proliferation record; was apparently dealing with A.Q. Khan who, the last time I looked, never was very interested in civil nuclear power; and so doesn't -- and by the way, sits in a very volatile region," Rice said.