WikiLeaks: Indira Gandhi had offered to share N-tech with Pakistan

They are hostile neighbours widely seen by many as competing to have a bigger nuclear arsenal. However, after its first nuclear test in 1974, India offered to share nuclear technology with Pakistan. In her statement to Indian Parliament after the tests on July 22, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi said she had told her Pakistani counterpart, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, that New Delhi would be ready to share the relevant technology with Islamabad.

Quoting her statement the US embassy reported, as revealed by Wikileaks, "I have explained in my letter to Prime Minister Bhutto the peaceful nature and the economic purposes of this experiment and have also stated that India is willing to share her nuclear technology with Pakistan in the same way she is willing to share it with other countries, provided proper conditions for understanding and trust are created. I once again repeat this assurance."

The offer was extraordinary in its audacity, but equally in its foresight. The Indian offer came as Bhutto termed as insufficient Gandhi's assurance that tests were not meant to harm Pakistan. In his response to Gandhi, Bhutto said, many past assurances from India "regrettably remain unhonored". Testing of nuclear device is no different from detonation of a nuclear weapon, he wrote.
Pakistan tested a nuclear weapon for the first time in May, 1998 — a fortnight after India conducted its second nuclear test.