New Delhi
31 May 2010
India can be expected to resume energy and economic dialogue with Iran in the
first week of July when Shamseddin Hosseini, the Iranian finance minister, leads a
delegation here for the 16th meeting of the bilateral joint commission. On the Indian side,
external affairs minister SM Krishna would co-chair the meeting.
Mr Krishna had conveyed New Delhi's interest in hosting the joint commission to
Manouchehr Mottaki, the Bengaluru-educated foreign minister of Iran, when they met in
Tehran in the third week of May.
Mr Krishna had travelled to the Persian Gulf nation for the G-15 summit, on the margins
of which he and Mr Mottaki discussed ways to enhance ties, particularly in trade. He
called on Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and met with Iranian parliament's
speaker Ali Larijani.
The India-Iran joint commission meeting would take place a week ahead of Mr Krishna's
visit to Islamabad for the meeting with his Pakistan counterpart, Shah Mahmood Qureshi.
The joint commission focusses on various economic sectors such as transport and
energy. It last met at Tehran in 2008.
Mr Krishna's visit to Tehran was in a series of recent interactions which India has had
with Iran, starting with foreign secretary Nirupama Rao's visit there in February this year
for the seventh round of foreign office consultations, and deputy national security
adviser Alok Prasad's talks with Iran's supreme national security council secretary
Saeed Jalili in Tehran in early May.
Iran has assumed a significance of its own in India's strategic calculus, particularly in
the context of the unfolding situation in Afghanistan. Both India and Iran have a shared
aversion for the Taliban and its accommodation in governance structures in Afghanistan.
India's bilateral trade with Iran touched 14 billion US dollars in 2009. Iran is India's third
largest supplier of crude oil. India and Iran are understood have discussed the
possibility of an offshore gas pipeline, given the uncertainties in the Iran-Pakistan-India
gas pipeline project.
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