Opinion Iran foreign minister’s visit reaffirms resolve of two countries to strengthen ties

Deepika Saraswat writes: The sanctions imposed by the US on Iran after Tehran withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018 may have virtually destroyed India-Iran trade, especially India’s energy imports from Iran, but the geopolitical logic underpinning relations between the two countries remains firm.

Iran Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian with Narendra Modi. (Photo: Twitter@narendramodi)

Deepika Saraswat

June 17, 2022 08:34 AM IST First published on: Jun 17, 2022 at 03:50 AM IST

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian’s three-day visit to India, last week, was the first ministerial-level visit from Iran since Ebrahim Raisi assumed the Iranian presidency in August last year. In keeping with the “Asia-oriented” foreign policy of the Raisi government, Abdollahian has visited Moscow and Beijing. President Raisi visited Russia in January this year.

The sanctions imposed by the US on Iran after Tehran withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018 may have virtually destroyed India-Iran trade, especially India’s energy imports from Iran, but the geopolitical logic underpinning relations between the two countries remains firm. The “Tehran Declaration” signed during former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to Iran affirmed the shared vision of the two countries for an “equitable, pluralistic and co-operative international order”. It recognised then Iranian President Mohammad Khatami’s vision of a “dialogue among civilisations” as a paradigm of international relations based on principles of tolerance, pluralism and respect for diversity. Two decades later, as India strengthens new partnerships within its regional vision centred on the Indo-Pacific, and Iran deepens relations with China and Russia, both countries remain driven by the goals of advancing their standing at the regional and global level. Both are keen to project themselves as independent strategic actors determined to play a role in shaping a new multipolar order in their shared Eurasian neighbourhood and also at the global level.

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Over the last three decades, since the emergence of independent landlocked countries in Central Asia, as Iran has sought to leverage its crossroad geographical location straddling the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea, India has come to see it as its land bridge to Central Asia and Eurasia. Despite the difficulties posed by decades of American sanctions, Iran has, along with India, Russia and a few other countries in the Eurasian region, continued to work on the multi-modal International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC). As Abdollahian wrapped up his India visit, India-bound Russia cargo containers embarked from Russia’s Astrakhan port to Iran’s Anzali port across the Caspian Sea en route to India’s Nhava Sheva port. During Raisi’s visit to Moscow, the two sides had pledged to redouble their efforts to build the railway line between Iran’s Caspian port of Rasht and Astara on the Iran-Azerbaijan border. The 130-km line will connect the railway networks of Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia. The activation of an alternative Caspian Sea route speaks volumes about the positive outlook of Iran, India and Russia on this corridor despite a variety of geopolitical challenges.

Iran’s Chabahar port, where India is developing two berths that it will lease for commercial operations for 10 years, is also a story of perseverance in the ties between the two countries. During consultations with his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar, Abdollahian brought up the “sluggish” pace of the port’s development. Tehran has maintained that Chabahar does not seek to rival Pakistan’s Gwadar port being developed by China. However, Iran does have a few like-minded partners when it comes to developing Chabahar. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Pakistan is leading the efforts to link Central Asia with Karachi through a trans-Afghan railway. Delhi is pushing for integrating Chabahar into the 13-nation INSTC. The maiden India-Central Asia summit, held in January, agreed on creating a Joint Working Group on Chabahar.

India abstained during the recent voting on the resolution by the US and its allies to censure Iran at the IAEA. This is in keeping with its stance of resolving the issue through dialogue. While the revival of the nuclear deal could give a fillip to India’s economic ties with Iran, India’s interests in continental Asia will be served well by heeding Abdollahian’s call for developing a long-term roadmap for bilateral relations.

The writer is Associate Fellow, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses