Iran is key to India’s ‘Look West’ policy: Foreign secy

Jul 06, 2010 - Age Correspondent |

New Delhi

In her most comprehensive remarks yet on how India views its relationship with Iran, foreign secretary Nirupama Rao said on Monday this was a “fundamental” component of its “Look West” policy.

“Our approach to Iran is embedded within the rationale that defines our foreign policy — our development priorities, our independent national interest, our commitment to multipolarity over unipolarity, our consciousness of the inequities in the global order today,” Ms Rao said while addressing a strategic dialogue organised here by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in association with an Iranian think tank.
The foreign secretary said New Delhi was revisiting its relationship with Tehran with a strategic perspective, independent of how countries such as the United States viewed ties with Iran. This comes just before the bilateral joint commission, headed by external affairs minister S.M. Krishna and Iran’s finance minister Shamseddin Hosseini, meets here on July 8-9.
Ms Rao recalled “an instinctive feeling of goodwill” Indians had towards the Iranian people, and identified four areas of complementarities and convergences: regional stability, in particular Afghanistan; economic relationship; maritime security; and energy security.

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