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Iran takes a step closer to
India
By Hooman Peimani
In
his meeting with the Indian ambassador to Tehran,
Priparan Singh Haer, on January 11, the head of Iran's
presidential office, Ali Khatami, expressed his
government's commitment to its relations with India by
saying, "Tehran is ready to use all its potential to
bolster ties with New Delhi". Based on a pattern of
cooperation in South and West Asia over the past two
decades, certain recent developments suggest that his
remark was more than a diplomatic statement as it
reflected the two countries' strategic friendship in
tune with their regional and international objectives.
In the contemporary era, Indian-Iranian
relations began right after India's independence in
1947. Despite the differences in their political
systems, ideological orientations and pattern of foreign
policies, India and Iran have since kept and expanded
their friendly ties. Thus, India's leading role in the
non-aligned movement and its close friendly ties with
the Soviet Union and its bloc did not damage its
relations with Iran under the Shah regime, the United
States' chief regional ally. Likewise, their
fundamentally different view of Pakistan did not affect
their political and economic relations significantly.
Whereas India considered Pakistan as its main enemy with
which it fought three wars in 1947-48, 1965 and 1971,
Iran viewed it as its main regional ally along with
Turkey, all of which were united in a regional military
organization: CENTO.
The Iranian Islamic
revolution of 1979 deteriorated Iran's relations with
just about every regional and non-regional country, but
did not damage those with New Delhi. On the contrary,
Iran's change of pattern of relations with the US and
its withdrawal from its pro-American military alliance
with Pakistan removed from Iranian-Indian bilateral
relations some of the hurdles preventing their
expansion. More than that, Iran's changing its regional
and international policies in accordance to those
realms' developments and also its changing interests
made the two countries' political visions closer to each
other.
Notwithstanding their differences in
economic, industrial, scientific and military
capabilities and their different types of relations with
the US, Iran and India have found a lot in common in the
post-Cold War era. As two rising regional powers, they
have many grievances about the international system,
which has "mistreated" them over the past two centuries
or so, while creating barriers to their emergence as
global powers.
Their regional and international
views on many issues have become the same, similar or
very close. They include their opposition to an
American-led unipolar international system and their
efforts to establish a multipolar system in which they
will be recognized as fully fledged poles. This
objective has aligned them with Russia, a dissatisfied
regional power and a long-time best friend of India
since its independence under the Kremlin's communist and
non-communist leaders. Since 1987 when the Soviet
leaders began improving ties with Iran after years of
backing Iraq, Moscow has gradually become Tehran's best
friend as well. Common concern about the expansion of
American and Pakistani influence in West Asia,
particularly in Afghanistan and Central Asia, has formed
the basis of the three countries' regional cooperation.
Being a main justification for their backing of the
anti-Taliban forces, that concern has continued to serve
as their main ground for cooperation in the post-Taliban
era.
Based on their compatible worldview, Iran
and India have extended their economic relations. Added
to their cooperation in heavy industries, oil refineries
and railroad construction, they have embarked on two
major economic activities of regional and international
significance in partnership with Russia: gas exports and
cargo transportation.
Iran is a major oil
supplier to India, which heavily relies on imported
fuel. Hence, when it comes to addressing India's growing
gas requirements, that gas-rich country is its "natural"
supplier. In last November, Russia's Gazprom announced
its reaching an agreement in principal with Iran to
construct a US$3.2 billion undersea gas pipeline between
Iran and India through Pakistan's territorial waters for
which Pakistanis had granted consent. Although it is not
yet clear if and when its actual construction will
begin, undoubtedly it is the major gas project in that
part of the world through which Pakistan will also
receive gas.
In May of last year, Iran, India
and Russia signed the North-South Corridor Agreement
(NSCA) to create through their sea and land
transportation networks a short-cut cargo transit route
between Europe and Asia. The NSCA seeks to rival the
much longer route via the Suez Canal. After about two
years of testing, the sea/land route began its official
operation in January when a Russian freighter discharged
its load at Iran's Caspian Sea port of Anzali. If its
operation continues and its three main protagonists
succeed in their plan to convince many Asian and
European traders to use their transit route, the NSCA
will turn them into major players in international cargo
transportation with a corresponding economic and
political rewards.
Against this background, it
is not surprising that Iran and India continue their
regional cooperation, such as in the form of
reconstruction projects in Afghanistan. On January 12,
the latter and Afghanistan signed two memoranda of
understanding on joint cooperation in the economic,
trade and transit fields. As part of their agreements,
Iran and India would provide land-locked Afghanistan
with their railroads and sea ports for its conduct of
international trade.
Apart from its importance
for Afghanistan's reconstruction, the joint project is
significant as it will increase the economic and
political importance of the NSCA by adding to it a land
link to connect China via Afghanistan to its sea and
land routes. Aimed at linking the Iranian road and
railroad networks to major Afghan cities, Iran's
December and January transportation agreements with
Afghanistan will surely serve that objective, among
others. They provided for constructing connecting
railroads and high ways between the Iranian eastern
provinces of Khorassan and Sistan and Balochistan and
the Afghan western provinces, including Herat.
The mentioned developments serve as examples of
a pattern of regional cooperation between Iran and India
backed by Russia. Apart from their immediate economic
objectives, they are aimed at preventing the total
domination of the United States and its current allies,
Pakistan and also Turkey, over a region of importance to
all of them, ie, West Asia, including Central Asia and
Afghanistan. President Khatami's next-month visit to New
Delhi will likely help further expansion of the two
countries regional and international cooperation both in
the economic and political fields.
Dr
Hooman Peimani works as an independent consultant
with international organizations in Geneva and does
research in international relations.
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