"This cooperation that we're extending to India is unique to India. It is not going to be replicated to other countries," Nicholas Burns, the US under secretary of state for political affairs, said in Paris on the eve of a trip to India.

He said that India differed markedly from Iran or Pakistan in that it has not been a source of nuclear proliferation and had been "transparent" about its programme.

He denied that Washington was employing double standards by opposing Iran's nuclear activities while offering to help India with its own.

"If you look at India's record, actually it's the reverse of Iran's record. India has been a responsible country in safeguarding its nuclear technology over the past 30 years," he told reporters at the US embassy in Paris.

Burns added that, even though India was not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, a deal to promote India's civil nuclear energy programme would bring the country "into effective compliance with all the international norms" of non-proliferation.

India's arch-rival in the region, Pakistan -- though "an important country in the war against Al-Qaeda" -- was, he said, "a country that has proliferated in the past to a major degree."

He added that "we have a relationship with Pakistan, but it doesn't extend to the kind of civil nuclear energy cooperation we intend to have with India."

The United States and India are to draw up a plan separating India's civilian and military nuclear facilities to pave the way for implementation of their atomic energy cooperation deal by early 2006.

US sanctions were imposed on India after its second round of nuclear tests in May 1998, but, after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Washington agreed to waive them in return for support its so-called "war on terrorism."

Under a July deal struck between President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the United States agreed to lobby allies to adjust international regimes to enable full civil nuclear energy cooperation and trade with India.

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