World | India
Foreign minister leaves for Tehran
In an attempt to juggle India's growing US relations with its centuries-old ties with Iran, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee goes to Tehran next week - his first visit abroad after the government won the trust vote yesterday.
- IANS
- Published: 23:37 July 24, 2008
New Delhi: In an attempt to juggle India's growing US relations with its centuries-old ties with Iran, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee goes to Tehran next week - his first visit abroad after the government won the trust vote yesterday.
Mukherjee will be there on a day-long visit July 29, which will be packed with meetings with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and Petroleum Minister Gholamhossein Nozari, a senior official said.
He is also likely to meet Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief secretary of its Supreme National Security Council and its chief nuclear negotiator.
Political push
Mukherjee's visit, which will be keenly watched in Washington, will give a political push to the tri-nation pipeline that seeks to bring Iranian gas to India via Pakistan, which is said to be in its final stages.
The $7.5 billion (Dh27.5 billion) pipeline project is being opposed by the US as it thinks such an ambitious project will dent its efforts to isolate Tehran over the Iranian nuclear programme.
Although the visit was scheduled much before the Left parties pulled the plug on the government forcing a trust vote in parliament which it won Tuesday, the trip is aimed at assuaging lingering anxieties among a section of the Indian political establishment, especially that of its new backer Samajwadi Party, which had made much of India sacrificing its ties with Iran over the last two years.
The Left parties, the government's supporter-turned-foe, have relentlessly accused it of betraying a friendly country like Iran by voting against it in the International Atomic Energy Agency for the sake of closer US relations.
With the India-US nuclear deal heading on its final journey and elections likely to be held in the none-too-distant future, Mukherjee's visit has acquired political overtones and is aimed at sending the message across that India's foreign policy is not a pawn of power games of more powerful countries like the US.
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