New Delhi
26 September 2005
Iran has said it was "surprised" by India's decision to vote
against it in the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA's) Board of Governors
meeting in Vienna over the last weekend.
The Iranian Embassy in India on Monday told this newspaper that New Delhi's decision
to vote in favour of finding Iran in non-compliance of the IAEA statute was "unexpected"
and hoped that New Delhi would "improve" its position.
Tehran was also categorical that New Delhi did not inform it of which way it would vote
and observed that India had expressed its opposition to the resolution all week and had
also rejected earlier drafts on two occasions.
New Delhi has responded by saying it hoped Tehran would appreciate India's stance
and clarified that it had expressed its opposition to Iran being declared as non-compliant
and it did not agree that it could pose a threat to global security.
India on Monday reiterated that she was acting "on behalf of Iran" to persuade the
international community to not refer the matter yet to the UN Security Council and to that
extent, she has been successful.
Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said at an early-morning news conference that there was
no shift in India's foreign policy and that the decision to go along with "EU 3" (United
Kingdom, France and Germany) was a considered one.
"This was a judgement made after a very careful assessment of the pros and cons and
in pursuit of a policy of avoiding confrontation and having enough time available to us to
work out an acceptable compromise," he said.
On why India did not abstain from voting, he said, "In terms of diplomacy, having got
them to agree to what we wanted, and then to say that we will abstain on the resolution,
would not have been a correct position for us to make".
On Saturday, the US and the EU failed to win a consensus against Iran and were forced
to pass a resolution through a vote, which requires Tehran to be reported to the United
Nations Security Council but at an unspecified date.
India and 21 other countries who are on the 35-member IAEA Board of Governors voted
in favour of the resolution drafted by the EU; 12 members including China and Russia
abstained while Venezuela voted against it.
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