Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to Visit India Next Week

NEW DELHI : Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif will be in New Delhi next week when India is expected to convey that peace, security and stability in the Gulf region was of importance given New Delhi’s dependence on fuel imports and the presence of about 7-8 million Indian expatriates in the region.

Zarif is listed as a speaker at the Raisina Dialogue that gathers strategic analysts, foreign and defence policy planners including ministers from different countries. The three-day event is co-hosted by India’s foreign ministry and the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation.

On Thursday, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar said that Zarif was still expected for the event despite a spike in tensions between the US and Iran over Friday’s killing of an Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani. On Wednesday, the two sides seemed to pull back from the brink with US President Donald Trump not talking of any retaliation to Iran firing missiles on two US targets in Iraq. After the missile attack, Zarif had in a Twitter post said “Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens & senior officials were launched. We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression.”

While analysts concluded that Iran and the US had signaled their intent not to escalate matters, news reports on Thursday said Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had warned of a “very dangerous response” if the US makes “another mistake” with another senior Iranian commander vowing “harsher revenge” for the killing of Soleimani, an Associated Press report said.

On Thursday, US defence secretary Mark Esper telephoned his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh and discussed the tensions in the Gulf region. “Secretary Esper briefed Singh about the recent developments in the Gulf region. Singh shared India’s stakes, interests and concerns,” a person familiar with the developments said.

“As we have articulated in the past, peace, security and stability in the region is of utmost importance to us. We have important interests in the region and we would like the situation to de-escalate as soon as possible,” foreign ministry spokesman Kumar said. “We are monitoring the situation and we will see how it develops,” he added.

New Delhi’s worries stem from the fact that a spurt in oil prices due to tensions in Gulf region could upset India’s plans to over oil prices will have an adverse impact on India’s economy, which had registered 4.5% growth in the September quarter. This is besides driving up India’s import bill. India imports more than 80% of its oil, and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are some of its other top suppliers.

Besides this, India has some 7-8 million expatriates living in the region sending home some $40 billion dollars in remittances.

Earlier this week, Indian foreign minister S. Jaishankar had spoken to US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and his counterparts in Qatar, Oman, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates to discuss the situation in the region.

Source: Live Mint

Image Courtesy: Thenational