India-Iran Relations

History

• India and Iran have had long and close cultural links. Their historic and current histories have been intertwined.
• The relation between India and Iran moves back to the ancient civilizations of the Indus valley and Mesopotamia. There was trade between the coast of southern Iran and India via the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Some Indus seals had been excavated at Kish, Susa, and Ur in Iran.

Areas of Cooperation

Political

• India-lran relations span millennia marked by way of significant interactions. Independent India and Iran installed diplomatic links on March 15, 1950.
• After the Iranian Revolution, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao visited Iran in 1993 and President Rafsanjani paid a visit to India in 1995.
• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Iran in 2016. Both the nations released a joint assertion titled “Civilizational join, current context”. Also, the agreement on Chabahar was signed.

Trade Relations

• India-lran business ties have historically been ruled by Indian import of Iranian crude oil.
• India was the second largest consumer of Iranian crude after China and Iran was the second largest provider of crude to India (April-June 2018).
• The India-lran bilateral trade all through the fiscal year 2016-17 was USD 12.89 billion.
• India imported USD 10.5 billion really worth of goods dominated by crude oil and exported commodities well worth USD 2.4 billion.

Energy Security

• Iran is India’s core power accomplice. India is also negotiating a contract on the Farzad B gas project. A crew of OVL (ONGC Videsh Ltd) visited Iran from December 5-6, 2016 to continue discussions on the Farzad B gas subject agreement. However, the negotiations had been time consuming.
• Indian companies are willing to invest up to $20 billion in Iran’s energy sector and set up petrochemical and fertilizer vegetation in the Chabahar Special Economic Zone.

Cultural Relations and Diaspora

• An Indian Cultural Centre is currently functioning in the Embassy premises, and Iran has Cultural Centres in Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai.
• In 2016, MoUs on India-lran Cultural Exchange Programme, ICCR and ICRO of Iran, National Archives of India and the National Library and Archives Organisation of Iran, were signed along with organising a chair for Hindi language in Tehran University and India-lran Eminent Persons Group.

Connectivity

Infrastructure projects like Chahbahar Port, International North South Transport Corridor will help India to pass the overland route through Pakistan and help in better trade relations with West and Central Asia.

Chabahar Port

• The port of Chabahar is located in southeastern Iran within the Gulf of Oman.
•  It is the only Iranian port with direct access to the ocean.
• It’s located in the Sistan-Balochistan province at the power-rich Iran’s southern coast.
• The Chabahar port is considered a gateway to golden opportunities for trade by India, Iran and Afghanistan with significant Asian nations.

International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC)

• The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) project become at the beginning determined between India, Iran, and Russia in 2000 in St Petersburg, and subsequently covered 10 different primary Asian and west Asian nations:
  • Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus, Oman, Syria, and Bulgaria are observers. 
• Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan are not party to the INSTC agreement but are interested in the transport corridor.
• It envisions a 7,200-km-long multi-mode community of supply, rail, and street routes for transporting freight, aimed at reducing the carriage price between India and Russia by about 30% and bringing down the transit time from 40 days by more than half.

Significance of Iran to India

• Connectivity

• • • Iran is located at the important junction of South Asia and the Middle East. It also hyperlinks the Central Asian Republics and the Caucasus vicinity to the Arabian Sea. Therefore, the connectivity to the Central Asian region by Iran has been a crucial interest to India.

• India’s Accession to Ashgabat Agreement

• • • Accession to the Ashgabat Agreement might enable India to utilise the existing shipping and transit hall to facilitate change and business interplay with the Eurasian region.

• Kashmir Issue

• • • Iran’s membership in the Organization of Islamic conference (OIC) will link India to some of the Islamic nations. India has stated that the institution (OIC) has no locus standi on India’s inner affairs and Iran considers Kashmir as a bilateral trouble of India and Pakistan.

• Afghanistan

• • • The presence of Taliban in Afghanistan and terrorists affiliated to al-Qaeda have jeopardized security of the Indian subcontinent. Thus, Iran’s cooperation was vital to address the issue.

• Market

• • India is also Iran’s top rice provider, and may circulate into exporting other agricultural products. Pharmaceutical is every other place that India can capitalise on export profits.

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