(ET)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York on Thursday. The meeting, amid escalating face-off between Iran and the United States on Tehran’s nuclear programme, is significant as India has refused to be drawn into US president Donald Trump’s remarks that Iran was the “number 1 terrorist state”, while he evaded a question on Pakistan recently.
Rouhani and Modi are understood to have discussed the regional situation and energy supplies from the region and other issues of mutual interest. Their meeting was keenly awaited as they could not hold a planned meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek in June due to scheduling issues.
External affairs minister S Jaishankar had earlier met his Iranian counterpart in New York, the second time since June, to further bilateral interests. During foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale’s recent visit to Tehran, the two sides had reviewed bilateral cooperation, ongoing connectivity and infrastructure development projects, including development of Chabahar port and full operationalisation of the Chabahar agreement between India, Iran and Afghanistan. Iran is India’s gateway to Afghanistan, Central Asia, Eurasia and Russia. As the world’s third largest oil consumer, India meets more than 80% of its needs from imports and Iran remained its third largest supplier, after Iraq and Saudi Arabia, until recently when exemptions from US sanctions expired.
