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New Delhi: At a time when the nuclear deal was being negotiated, the US had tried to pressurise India over its ties with Iran and even objected to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Delhi, saying it would give "platform for an enemy of the US", according to Wikileak documents. The cables sent by the then US Ambassador David Mulford to the State Department make it clear that India did not want America to tell it "what to do, especially in public" as it wanted to be seen pursuing an independent foreign policy. "This government has to be seen following an independent foreign policy, not responding to dictation from the US," the then Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon told Mulford, according to one of the cables. The cables reveal that Mulford had tried to play the 'nuclear deal' card to pressurise India against hosting Ahmadinejad on April 29, 2008, when he had a stopover of few hours in New Delhi while returning home from Sri Lanka. During the brief visit, the Iranian President had held talks with Prime Minister Manomhan Singh. The average American will wonder why the US has gone out of its way to have a nuclear cooperation initiative with India, when India is so friendly to Iran, Mulford had told the Indian officials. He had warned that the visit would be seen by Americans, especially the Congress, as "providing a platform for an enemy of the US". >>>