India on Tuesday said ‘no’ to United States which has advised India to go tough on Iran ahead of its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to India for a short stopover on April 29.
India firmly said that it does not want any guidance on how to conduct the talks and that both the countries are perfectly capable of managing all aspects of their relationship.
Navtej Sarna, foreign ministry spokesman said, “It is important that the genius of each nation living in a particular region is respected and allowed to flower to meet the expectations of enriching relations with neighbours.”
“Both nations are perfectly capable of managing all aspects of their relationship with the appropriate degree of care and attention. Neither country needs any guidance on the future conduct of bilateral relations as both countries believe that engagement and dialogue alone lead to peace,” he added.
The straight reaction came as a response of US state department deputy spokesperson Tom Casey who asked India to enlighten Iran to halt its uranium enrichment activities.
He said, “We would hope that the Indian government, or any government that was engaging with the Iranians, including with President Ahmadinejad, would call on him to meet the requirements that the Security Council and the international community have placed on him in terms of suspending their uranium enrichment activities and complying with other requirements regarding their nuclear programme.”
But the diplomat reserved that it’s up to India to decide how to handle bilateral ties with Iran but maintained that Washington would like to encourage India to ask Iran “become a more responsible actor on the world stage” by ending its “rather unhelpful activities” regarding Iraq and support for terrorism, including organisations like Hezbollah and Hamas.
The external affairs ministry refuted America and said that Iran and India share ancient civilization and the relation has taken centuries to build.
India though opposed to further proliferation of nuclear technologies but strongly believe that there are other peaceful means to solve the issue through dialogues and using International Atomic Energy Agency as a platform than to simply isolate Iran from International arena.
Reportedly US is opposed to Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project (which is major plan taken to douse the energy thirst of India and Pakistan) as It believes that Iran will drive all the revenue from the pipeline project to restart its nuclear programme.
It is expected that talks regarding finalisation of the pipeline will be held with Iranian president who will meet Manmohan Singh for a brief period while returning from Colombo to Tehran.
This pipeline is also seen as an important strategy to reach peace and stability in the region. The proposed pipeline is 2,775 km long that will deliver gas from the fields of Iran to Pakistan and India.
Earlier India had voted against Tehran in the IAEA board of governors' meetings in September 2005 and March 2006 which took Iran by surprise. The then nuclear advisor of Iran, Ali Larijani reacted “India was our friend. We did not expect India to do so. But I believe that friends should not be judged by a single action.”
India’s sharp reaction this time to US will for sure help to mellow down the differences.
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