New Delhi: With the US giving deadline to India asking it to stop their oil imports from Iran, without asking any questions, failing which, India, China and other countries opposing the US, will be subjected to similar sanctions of zero waivers ever, India can surely live without importing Iranian oil but Iran will still remain an integral part of India’s foreign policy.
After the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) unshackled global engagement with Tehran, Iran had already moved to third position in 2016 as a source of energy, Economic Times reported.
India has got a majority of Oil suppliers from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, even Equatorial Guinea and US.
On the other hand, Iran sees this US “zero” demand in a completely different way. Iranian officials have responded saying: “This big claim (of cutting Iran oil supply) is not feasible because last month Iran exported 2.8 million barrels of crude oil and condensate per day,” which shows US’s demand would not make such a huge difference to Iran with many customers under its belt and very little to buy from India apart from Basmati rice and few pharmaceuticals.
With Turkey’s Halkbank refused to process Indian payments, a bigger issue will be multi-modal connectivity since India needs Iran to stay connected to Central Asia and Russia.
The recent visit of Iran’s President in February this year focused mainly on connectivity with India requesting to use the Chahbar port as access to Afghanistan as well as International North-South Corridor (INSTC). Iran had asked India to build a new extension of the rail link at Zahedan (which connects to Afghanistan as well as to Iran’s national network) to Mashad, and thence to central Asia during Iranian President’s visit to New Delhi.
Since the US is unpredictable these days with Trump’s administration, use of Chhabar port remains uncertain now against the previously promised functioning of the port.
India had previously voted twice against Iran at the IAEA in oppose of Iran’s budding nuclear programme which puts India and Iran on different wavelengths now with Iran having to do very little business with India.
The Indian government is now working on ways to preserve its ties with Iran after a recent update on US treasury’s website listing circumstances in which US Government can waive sanctions.