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Iran and Indias Road

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WrittenbyCRajaMohan|Posted:October20,20144:37pm

Delhis decision, annonunced over the weekend, to

participate in the development of the Chabahar port in
Southeastern Iran has not come a day too soon.
The idea was first mooted more than a decade ago during the
visit of the Irans president, Mohammed Khatami, as the chief
guest at Indias Republic Day celebrations in January 2003.
That it has taken so long to move on this important project
underlines the fact that the UPA government failed to get its
act together on critical projects involving Indias national
security.
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If the finance ministry refused to

fund strategic projects within and
beyond borders during the UPA
rule, the government of Narendra
Modi is eager to press ahead by

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resolving the inter-ministerial

disputes. With Arun Jaitley in
charge of both the finance and

defence ministries, it has become a lot easier to convince

the bureaucrats of the finance ministry.
Both Delhi and Tehran value the Chabahar port as a means to
improve their geopolitical leverage vis a vis Pakistan and
pursue their common interest in providing Afghanistan and
Central Asia alternative routes to the Indian Ocean.
The NDA government has sanctioned nearly $85 million the
construction of two berths at Chabahar and the development
of a container terminal.
The proposal for Chabahar port came up in the context of
Pakistans plans to develop a greenfield port at Gwadar on
Pakistans Makran coast with substantive financial assistance
from China at the turn of the last decade.
Tehran saw the Gwadar project as undermining Irans
position as the gateway to Central Asia and decided to
develop Chabahar, which is located not too far to the West
from Gwadar. Delhi, which long chafed at Pakistans refusal
to provide overland access to Afghanistan, viewed the
Chabahar port as a credible alternative to gaining physical
access to Afghanistan. Land-locked Kabul, whose only route
to the sea is through Pakistan, welcomed the project as a way
to ease its strategic dependence on Islamabad.
Even the United States, which was determined to isolate Iran,
chose to support the efforts by Delhi, Tehran and Kabul to
develop transport corridors that improve international
connectivity with Afghanistan.

The importance of Chabahar project has only gone up over

the last decade. Afghanistans strategic vulnerabilities are
increasing amidst the U.S. plans to substantially reduce its
military presence in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile India-Pakistan relations have entered a tense
phase.
The hopes for normalisation of trade relations between the
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two countries have begun to evaporate. There is little

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prospect that Islamabad will agree to trilateral economic

integration with India and Afghanistan.
Delhi and Tehran must now sit down with the new

government in Kabul to negotiate trilateral trade and transit

agreements that will ensure an early realisation of all
economic and strategic benefits that the Chabahar project
promises.

(The writer is a distinguished fellow at the Observer

Research Foundation, Delhi and a contributing editor for The
Indian Express)
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TAGS: ChabaharPort GwadarProject NarendraModiGovernment TrilateralTrade

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MADDY

8 days ago

this port is very important to india and iran not only

strategically but also economically and stability in the region
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