India’s first reaction has been
cautious, and it may gain from the US-Europe disagreement. Indian interests in
Afghanistan and West Asia are at stake, and this could be the moment to plan
for similar crises in future.
What is the nuclear deal from
which President Donald Trump on Tuesday pulled the United States?
It is officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA), and informally the ‘Iran
nuclear deal’. It was signed between
Iran and the P5 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security
Council — US, China, France, Russia, and the UK), plus Germany and the European Union, in Vienna on July 14, 2015. The deal, aimed at preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon, involved lifting of
international sanctions in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear programme.
But the Trump administration says the deal
did not target Iran’s ballistic missile programme, its nuclear activities beyond
2025, and its role in conflicts in Yemen and Syria. The President said the
“horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made”… “didn’t bring
calm,… didn’t bring peace, and it never will”.
How has India responded to the
US action against the deal?
India has been extremely
supportive of the deal. Prime Minister Narendra Modihad in
2016 complimented the Iranian leadership on the JCPOA and subsequent
developments, and said it represented the “triumph of diplomacy and sagacity”.
On Wednesday, the Ministry of External Affairs walked a diplomatic tightrope,
its spokesperson Raveesh Kumar issuing an extremely cautious statement: “India
has always maintained that the Iranian
nuclear issue should be resolved peacefully through dialogue and diplomacy by
respecting Iran’s right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy as also the
international community’s strong interest in the exclusively peaceful nature of
Iran’s nuclear programme. All parties should engage constructively to
address and resolve issues that have arisen with respect to the JCPOA.”
How does this statement sit
with India’s position on multilateral commitments?
India has been a proactive votary
of the international rules-based order. This has been its line on the South
China Sea and on the 2015 Paris climate accord, to which it reiterated its
commitment just days after Trump announced in June 2017 that the US was
abandoning the agreement. New Delhi did not, however, articulate with
sufficient clarity its position when Trump announced the US would shift its
embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and recognise that city as the country’s
capital. On the US withdrawal from the Iran deal, India seems to be hedging its
bets currently; however, if New Delhi, which has recently become a member of
three multilateral export control regimes (MTCR, Wassenaar Arrangement,
Australia Group) wants to also join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a
clearer articulation of commitment to JCPOA will help with the Europeans,
especially the French. The complication though, is that, like France, the US
too, is a strong backer of India’s NSG membership bid.
What is the implication for
India on the energy trade?
Iran, India’s third-largest oil supplier after Iraq and Saudi Arabia,
supplied 18.4 million tonnes (mt) of crude in the first 10 months of the
2017-18 fiscal (April 2017 to January 2018). Until 2010-11, Iran was India’s
second-largest supplier after Saudi Arabia, but slipped in subsequent years as
international sanctions hit. In 2013-14 and 2014-15, India bought 11 mt and
10.95 mt respectively from Iran. This rose to 12.7 mt the following year, and
then jumped to 27.2 mt in 2016-17.
While the 2010-15 sanctions were
imposed by global consensus, Trump has
made his decision to pull out from the deal unilaterally — the UK, Germany and
France have said they remain committed to the agreement with Iran; China has
said the JCPOA “should be implemented in good faith by all parties”, and Russia
has said it is “deeply disappointed” with the US. Should these signatories be
able to ensure the deal does not collapse altogether, India could conceivably
use euros to pay Iran for oil supplies.
Is there a threat to India’s
strategic investment in Iran’s Chabahar port?
India is developing Chabahar as the beginning of a route to
strife-torn, landlocked Afghanistan that bypasses Pakistan, and as a gateway to
Central Asia. It is both a financial
and a strategic investment. Over the last three years, the engagement
between India and Iran on Chabahar has gathered momentum; Modi travelled to
Iran in May 2016, and work is expected to be completed and the port handed over
to Indian authorities by July, Iranian officials have said.
This timeline may, however, come
under pressure — and get pushed to perhaps the end of the year — if American
sanctions hit infrastructure development in Chabahar. However, India may still
have options if the other signatories stick with the JCPOA. New Delhi will likely argue with its
interlocutors in Washington that access to Afghanistan is a shared objective of
both countries, and that India’s goal of helping Afghanistan’s reconstruction
— at the request of the Trump administration — through $ 1 billion assistance
and work in over 100 small development projects, may be affected if Chabahar is
slowed down.
Chabahar is crucial to Indian
interests also because Iran is seen to be offering the port to other countries
as well, including China, which is already developing Pakistan’s Gwadar port
next door.
What can be the implications
in West Asia, especially from an Indian perspective?
Trump’s move to target Iran, and
side with its regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Israel, could destabilise the region where over 8 million
Indian migrants live and work. Military tensions in West Asia have forced
India to evacuate its nationals in the past; New Delhi’s capacity to do so is,
however, limited.
What does Trump’s move mean
for the India-US relationship?
Under Trump, this relationship has been transactional. The US has
been hard on Pakistan, but has asked India to be more proactive in the
Indo-Pacific, with an eye on China. While there has been complementarity of
interests in both these situations, the Indian
establishment has been wary of committing too much on the Indo-Pacific strategy
— the India-US-Japan-Australia ‘Quad’ is still taking its first baby steps.
Also, faultlines between India and the
US over its relationship with Russia have grown prominent of late — New
Delhi is aware of these divergences, and the Iran situation will test the
durability of the “strategic partnership” between the world’s largest and
oldest democracies.
And what about the future of
the India-Iran relationship?
The two countries have a
strategic interest in keeping the relationship durable and sustainable, and
would want to insulate it from the impact of sanctions. Many experts feel the government should look at options like the
rupee-rial trading mechanism, and opening of Iranian banks in India and Indian
banks in Iran, to facilitate movement of money and income between the two
countries. The current crisis could force New Delhi and Tehran to work on a
plan for similar situations in the future.
Credit: Indian Express Explained
(http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/what-donald-trumps-pullout-from-iran-deal-means-for-india-5170552/)
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