Making a significant diplomatic move National Security Advisor Ajit Doval paid a one-day visit to Iran-capital Tehran, on May 1, at the invitation of his Iranian counterpart Ali Shamkhani.
This was crucial as it comes in the run-up to Iran’s formal entry into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in India in July.
The NSA also held talks with Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hossein Amirabdollahian, who is scheduled to travel to India later this week to attend the much-talked-about SCO Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Goa.
Ajit Doval also called on Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. During the meeting, Ebrahim Raisi said, “Iran and India, as two influential countries in the region, can be more effective in the changes caused by the establishment of the new world order by promoting their cooperation to a new level.”
“Today, the leaders of Iran and India want to expand relations, especially in the economic and commercial fields, and this issue was emphasised in the meeting between me and Narendra Modi in Samarkand,” Ebrahim Raisi has been quoted as stating by the ‘Tehran Times’.
Ajit Doval’s visit also came a day after the Iraqi President visited Tehran.
This was the maiden high-level visit from India to Iran since the rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia that promises to stabilise the larger West Asian region. Earlier, following the Saudi-Iran peace deal, a senior MEA official had travelled to Riyadh.
Iranian NSA Ali Shamkhani and Ajit Doval discussed economic, political, and security issues concerning the two countries as well as the most important regional and international developments, according to reports.
In the meeting, Ali Shamkhani pointed out the deep-rooted civilisational, historical, and cultural commonalities, the will of the leaders of the two countries, as well as the strategic independence of Iran and India as the main platforms for the development of bilateral cooperation.
“The relations between Iran and India are not against any other country and are not affected by the will of third parties. Global and regional developments have created very suitable conditions for strengthening bilateral interactions in the fields of energy, transportation and transit, technology and banking,” Ali Shamkhani stated.
President Ebrahim Raisi pointed out that the conditions of the world are changing, and a new world order is being formed.
“In the heart of the ongoing changes in the world, regional and international organisations, especially the Shanghai and BRICS organisations, can be very effective due to their considerable power and resources,” he said.
The Iranian President noted that strengthening bilateral cooperation between Iran and India, in addition to providing mutual benefits, can have constructive effects in resolving regional issues, including the Afghanistan issue.
Ebrahim Raisi said, “Iran and India, as two influential countries in the region, can be more effective in the changes caused by the establishment of the new world order by promoting their cooperation to a new level.”
Iranian NSA Ali Shamkhani said Tehran considers New Delhi’s active presence in political, economic and security initiatives with the participation of Central Asian and Persian Gulf countries to be “necessary and faciliatory”.
India, along side China, Iraq, Turkey and United Arab Emirates (UAE), are among the top export destinations of Iranian non-oil products. Sources also say that corn as livestock food, soybeans, rice, mobile phones, and parts for car manufacturing were the main imported items, and India, along with UAE, China, Turkey and Germany was the major source of imports for Iran.
India is in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which is driven by Russia and China.
The presence of Pakistan and also Central Asian countries makes SCO a vital international platform.
Iran, which had observer status, was formally admitted into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on September 17, 2021, at Dushanbe in Tajikistan.
PM Modi was among the first who greeted Tehran’s full membership, a fact widely acknowledged in the Iranian media too.
The full SCO membership in the pattern given to India and Pakistan in 2017 would henceforth give Iran the key opportunity to take a major step in regional cooperation.
Analysts say comprising 40 per cent of the world’s population and 30 per cent of the global GDP, the SCO can provide Iran with a multilateral institutional capacity to strengthen trade and connectivity to revive the economy against crippling US sanctions.
Last week during the SCO Defence Ministers’ conference, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met his Iranian counterpart Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Gharaei Ashtiyani, and discussed matters of mutual interests.
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