PM Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian held talks on trade, West Asia conflict and maritime security on the sidelines of the SCO summit
Pezeshkian, for his part, is reported to have asked PM Modi to use India’s extensive diplomatic contacts to encourage dialogue and help end the conflict.
“I don’t think there’s a trade deal between India and Iran,” Rubio said Wednesday, after PM Narendra Modi’s meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan drew scrutiny in Washington DC. India described the meeting as “fruitful” but no formal trade agreement was announced. Addressing the SCO, he said Iran was prepared to reciprocate if Washington honoured commitments under an interim agreement reached in June, and indicated that Tehran remained open to negotiations.
TOI correspondent from Washington: US secretary of state Marco Rubio has sought to draw a red line between India’s right to conduct its own diplomacy and Washington’s determination to prevent Iran from rebuilding the economic lifelines strangled by US sanctions. But he followed that reassurance with a warning that was plainly less accommodating: countries should not help Tehran create mechanisms to generate revenue that could finance terrorism or its nuclear programme, and those that do could themselves face US sanctions. The timing of Rubio’s warning, coming on the heels of PM Modi’s meeting with Pezeshkian, made the message to New Delhi – which prides itself on its independent foreign policy – difficult to miss. The two leaders discussed expanding and diversifying bilateral trade, the wars and instability in West Asia, and the need to protect freedom of navigation and commercial shipping after attacks in the region killed Indian seafarers. The Bishkek summit also gave Iran a larger diplomatic stage at a particularly vulnerable moment for Tehran. Pezeshkian met Russian President Vladimir Putin, thanking Moscow for its support and calling for closer cooperation against what he described as US “unilateralism. He also met Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Yet his message was not simply defiance. He also linked freedom of navigation through the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz to implementation of the agreement.