Bhai Zakir
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US is forced to grin and bear Manmohan Singhs trip to Iran
New York: The powers that be in Washington are hardly thrilled about Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs trip later this month to Iran to attend a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit. But they have no choice but to grin and bear it.
The US has tried to pressure India to alienate old friend and oil supplier Iran but it hasnt really worked.
Singhs high-profile visit to Iran will be the first by an Indian prime minister in over a decade. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was perhaps the last to visit Iran in 2001.
Singhs trip is expected to spur trade ties and the two are expected to discuss purchases of crude oil by India as well as exports of commodities to Iran.
On the strategic side, its important for India to have a close relationship with Tehran as Iran is Indias only corridor for land access to Afghanistan, through which is routed most of its development and reconstruction assistance to Afghanistan.
Geopolitics aside, India has genuine reason to want to participate in the sixteenth NAM summit from August 28-31 as one of NAMs founders. Ahead of Singhs visit to Iran, the US is asking India to counsel Iran on its nuclear program.
We talk to India bilaterally about all of our concerns with regard to Iran, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters on Tuesday.
We would hope, as we always do when our partners and allies are involved in any kind of intersection with Iran, that the larger points are made about the importance of Iran coming back into compliance with its international obligations using the opportunity that the P-5+1 has offered for diplomacy, she added.
Iranian officials have met with the P5+1 powers that include the US, Russia, China, UK, France and Germany three times this year. The UN General Assembly meets on September 13, so one can expect some sort of P5+1 meeting there. Analysts say the six governments will presumably never admit that talks with Iran are over or they have failed lest they seem to justify an Israeli strike on Iran.
The Indian government feels it is unfair for the West and the US in particular, to put India in a position where it has to lecture or choose one friend over another.
Indias relationship with Iran is neither inconsistent with non-proliferation objectives, nor do we seek to contradict the relationships we have with our friends in West Asia or with the US and Europe, the Indian Embassy in Washington finally said in exasperation in March this year,
while blasting the US media for projecting a distorted picture of New Delhis foreign policy objectives and energy security needs by using data selectively about its imports from Iran.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in June that India will be exempted from financial sanctions because it has significantly cut purchases of Iranian oil.
But India endured its own years of US sanctions (after it tested five nuclear devices in 1998 in Pokhran) and isolation over the nuclear issue; it doesnt like the policy, and it doesnt believe it works.
Not surprisingly, India is against isolating Iran and believes Iran must be involved in regional issues and brought back into the international fold for any compromise to work.
US is forced to grin and bear Manmohan Singh
New York: The powers that be in Washington are hardly thrilled about Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs trip later this month to Iran to attend a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit. But they have no choice but to grin and bear it.
The US has tried to pressure India to alienate old friend and oil supplier Iran but it hasnt really worked.
Singhs high-profile visit to Iran will be the first by an Indian prime minister in over a decade. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was perhaps the last to visit Iran in 2001.Singhs trip is expected to spur trade ties and the two are expected to discuss purchases of crude oil by India as well as exports of commodities to Iran.
On the strategic side, its important for India to have a close relationship with Tehran as Iran is Indias only corridor for land access to Afghanistan, through which is routed most of its development and reconstruction assistance to Afghanistan.
Geopolitics aside, India has genuine reason to want to participate in the sixteenth NAM summit from August 28-31 as one of NAMs founders. Ahead of Singhs visit to Iran, the US is asking India to counsel Iran on its nuclear program.
We talk to India bilaterally about all of our concerns with regard to Iran, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters on Tuesday.
We would hope, as we always do when our partners and allies are involved in any kind of intersection with Iran, that the larger points are made about the importance of Iran coming back into compliance with its international obligations using the opportunity that the P-5+1 has offered for diplomacy, she added.
Iranian officials have met with the P5+1 powers that include the US, Russia, China, UK, France and Germany three times this year. The UN General Assembly meets on September 13, so one can expect some sort of P5+1 meeting there. Analysts say the six governments will presumably never admit that talks with Iran are over or they have failed lest they seem to justify an Israeli strike on Iran.
The Indian government feels it is unfair for the West and the US in particular, to put India in a position where it has to lecture or choose one friend over another.
Indias relationship with Iran is neither inconsistent with non-proliferation objectives, nor do we seek to contradict the relationships we have with our friends in West Asia or with the US and Europe, the Indian Embassy in Washington finally said in exasperation in March this year,
while blasting the US media for projecting a distorted picture of New Delhis foreign policy objectives and energy security needs by using data selectively about its imports from Iran.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in June that India will be exempted from financial sanctions because it has significantly cut purchases of Iranian oil.
But India endured its own years of US sanctions (after it tested five nuclear devices in 1998 in Pokhran) and isolation over the nuclear issue; it doesnt like the policy, and it doesnt believe it works.
Not surprisingly, India is against isolating Iran and believes Iran must be involved in regional issues and brought back into the international fold for any compromise to work.
US is forced to grin and bear Manmohan Singh
. I easily get bored with long articles.
