As Iran battles American-led Western sanctions over its nuclear programme, its foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi arrives in New Delhi Thursday on a two-day visit, an invitation in hand for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to attend the coming Tehran nonaligned summit.
India’s declining oil imports from a country once ranked second among its major crude suppliers may also figure in Mr Salehi’s discussions with Dr Singh, external affairs minister S.M. Krishna, national security adviser Shivshankar Menon, among others.
It’s a measure of the importance Iran attaches to its India ties that Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sent his foreign minister to personally invite Dr Singh to the 16th NAM summit. Iran takes over NAM’s rotating presidency at the summit, which brings together 120 countries, with 17 others as observers.
Given Iran’s pariah-like status following the Western sanctions, Tehran obviously hopes Dr Singh will attend the summit, and reaffirm India’s support to a country with which New Delhi still maintains close bilateral ties.
The Prime Minister, however, when asked by reporters about this while flying home Tuesday from his Burma visit, remained noncommittal on whether he would attend the Tehran meeting. Dr Singh’s presence will be a huge diplomatic coup for Tehran, which is finding itself increasingly isolated internationally over its nuclear programme.
While India has cut oil imports from Iran, it is unwilling to completely spoil relations with a country with which it has strong historical ties. Indeed, New Delhi reiterated the importance of Iran to meet its energy needs during US secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s visit to India last month. Saying Iran was a “key country”, India asserted it needed to look at issues beyond the energy trade.
A measure of the tugs and pulls New Delhi faces over its Iran ties was evident when, a few days after Ms Clinton’s visit, Mr Ahmadinejad called Dr Singh and sought expanded Iran-India cooperation in different fields.