Delhi-Tehran relations won’t undermine US policies, hopes Boucher
By Anwar Iqbal
WASHINGTON, Sept 21: The United States hopes that India’s relations with Iran will not undermine Washington’s policies towards Tehran, says Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher.
On Wednesday, Mr Boucher had asked India to explain its ties with Iran, causing uproar in the Indian parliament where left wing parties urged the government to reconsider a controversial nuclear deal it is negotiating with the United States.
“The Indian government is very well aware of the concerns of India’s military relationship with Iran. What we are trying to do is for everybody to understand the facts of the matter,” he said.
Mr Boucher insisted that the US administration is still looking for answers from New Delhi. Indian politicians, particularly those of the left, reacted angrily to the statement.
“America is intimidating us. It is none of their business to dictate what we should or should not do with Iran,” said D. Raja, national secretary of the Communist Party of India.
“Our suspicions about the nuclear deal have come true. The attempt is to drag India into the American global strategy,” he said.
In his latest statement, Mr Boucher rejected the suggestion that the United States is intimidating India but insisted that Washington has concerns about India’s relations with Iran. “What we are hoping is that the ties can be sort of normal and not undermine one or the others’ policies,” he said, adding “Iran’s behaviour in the region is often a very serious concern to us.”
Mr Boucher, to a query during an interactive session at the Johns Hopkins University, said in the context of India, the concerns have been raised over the military ties, especially in the US Congress as it considers the Indo-US nuclear deal.
The Washington Post reported on Friday that India’s ties with Iran appear to threaten the beleaguered nuclear deal between Washington and New Delhi and may also affect the growing strategic alliance between the two countries. The newspaper noted that the Bush administration has long expressed concern over India’s relations with Iran and its reluctance to help curtail Iran’s nuclear programme.
On Wednesday, Boucher made clear that the administration is still looking for answers from New Delhi. The paper noted that Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee recently said that Iran had “every right to pursue its nuclear programme for peaceful purposes” and that India favours a “non-interventionist policy in Iran.”
Two weeks ago, Indian Defence Minister A. K. Antony informed parliament that the Indian navy was training five Iranian sailors in its facilities. “Such a policy would run contrary to the hopes of the Bush administration,” the Post observed.
It noted that the legislation that made the US-India nuclear deal possible contains a nonbinding provision saying that India should work with the United States to dissuade Iran from developing its nuclear programme and, if necessary, help contain it.
The newspaper described the proposed $7 billion Iran, Pakistan, India gas pipeline as one of the major irritants in India’s relations with the United States. If completed, the pipeline will bring five million tons of liquefied natural gas to India annually.
