Caught unawares by the Iran nuclear deal, the National Security Advisor held an emergency meeting on Tuesday to calibrate India’s strategy on fears that Tehran may now harden its position with New Delhi.
NSA Shivshankar Menon ticked off external affairs ministry officials for plodding their feet on economic projects in Iran, mainly development of Chabahar port, despite it being outside the purview of the US sanctions.
He pulled up ministry officials for the project continuing to be on the inception stage despite an announcement in May that India would pump in $100 million for the upgrade of the Iranian port.
Menon’s fear is that dilly-dallying could veer Tehran away from India and prompt it to backtrack on its past offers as had been sounded out by new Iranian oil minister Bijan N Zangeneh in September.
Zangeneh had then conveyed that Iran was withdrawing all oil and gas concessions that had been promised to India by his predecessor. He informed that Tehran would not accept entire payment for crude oil imported by India in rupees as agreed in July and would also disallow a production sharing contract for Farzad-B as agreed in January.
Menon instructed the ministry to “actively engage” with Iran and send a delegation to Tehran for renegotiating the oil and gas concessions. Tehran would also be told that India remained “involved” in the transnational Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline.
As a sweetener, Iran would be told that India —which has so far bought nearly five million tonnes of crude oil from Iran until October — would be pursuing a purchase of 11 million tonnes in fiscal 2013-14 ending March 31, 2014 from Iran. India bought 13 million tonnes in 2012-13.
As for outstanding dollar payments, it was decided at the meeting that India would await US instructions on the quantum of money to be released to Iran and the country appointed for the transfer.
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