Singh struck by Ayatollah’s interest in India
A day after meeting the top Iranian leadership, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said both countries would attempt to work around hurdles placed by American and European sanctions to step up economic ties.
However, the Prime Minister ruled out India intervening to solve problems that Iran was facing.
“There is lot of interest in doing business with India and getting Indian investment in infrastructure. There are of course difficulties imposed by Western sanctions, but subject to that I think we will explore ways and means of developing our relations with Iran,” Dr. Singh said of his meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Tehran.
A few days before the meeting, India had a trilateral meeting with Iran and Afghanistan on developing an alternative route from an Iranian port to landlocked Afghanistan and on to Central Asia.
India has built a facilitating road in Afghanistan for the purpose and has offered to develop the Chabahar port in Iran along with a link to the Afghan road.
Dr. Singh spoke warmly about his meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Syed Ali Khamenei, acknowledging being “particularly struck” by his interest and involvement in Indian affairs. This was the first meeting in 11 years between an Indian Prime Minister and the Ayatollah, who has been the Iranian Supreme Leader since 1989.
“And what I was more struck by was his statement that a country of India’s great diversity, different languages, different religions, has greater chances of achieving its national goals, if there is growing respect for tolerance and respect for diversity. He said that is the way of the future, human civilisation is moving in that direction, and what India is trying to achieve is truly remarkable,” observed the Prime Minister.
Of course if it is in our interests we should toss the American
sanctions to the garbage heap. However we should remember we face
Islamic threats from Pakistan in the form of the Kashmir dispute and
in Afghanistan, besides having Islamic terror networks in India as
well. The Ayatollah is first and foremost an Islamic leader, and we
should see to it that we aren't betrayed like the Islamic socialists
and the secular leaders of the Iranian Revolution were by the then
Ayatollah after the Ayatollah consolidated his position.
Secondly, the oil kingdoms of the Gulf have reserves for at least
another century, which ensures their prominence in world (esp Middle
Eastern) affairs till then. They are enemies of the Iranian theocracy.
And its not as if we can give them a toss once we have Iran on our
side. Also, we have competition for Iranian influence in Pakistan and
China, which we cannot ignore. Therefore rushing headlong into a
confrontation with the US isn't the best of ideas.
Attending NAM summit despite, resistance from western countries is good posture by India, it show over values of sovereignity, non-alignment.
However, India should be careful. We have great partners in Israel and USA. We can't afford to ignore them. We should take such a position that we maintain over friendly ties with Iran, specially trade & cultural and not enter into any dispute related to Nuclear weapons.
Civil ways, not sanctions, are what civilsation is all about. Takes
about 3000 years to understand where there's a will, there's a way.
India and Iran are best suited to engage in trade today by currency
swapping.
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