India push for Iran's key port development

July 6, 2010 - 0:0

India wants to speed up its development of Iran's Chabahar port, and will push the Iranian government this week to put its facilitation on fast track.

Shamseddin Hosseini, the Iranian economic and finance minister, will lead a delegation of mainly economic and energy department officials for the India-Iran joint commission, which takes place here in New Delhi July 8-9. The Indian side will be led by foreign minister S. M. Krishna.
Although the Chabahar port has been an Indian project for some time, the Iranian side has been lax in keeping to its end of the bargain.
The port is strategically important -- serving as the entry point for India's outreach into Afghanistan and Central Asia, bypassing Pakistan.
For this purpose, India also spent a lot of money and human lives to build the Zaranj-Delaram road in Afghanistan's Nimroz province, which was intended to link up with the Chabahar port. But establishing those linkages turned out to be more difficult than India imagined.
The joint commission will also discuss other areas of cooperation between India and Iran, particularly in the fields of agriculture, pharmaceuticals and mining.
Though the Iran gas pipeline may not happen anytime soon, and India will probably be one of the first countries to enforce UN Security Council sanctions against Iran, evolving geopolitics ensure a close relationship between the two countries.
(Source: The Times of India)