Iran's criticism challenges India's 'friends with all' policy

Khamenei posted in X said, “We cannot consider ourselves to be Muslims if we are oblivious to the suffering that a Muslim is enduring in Myanmar, Gaza, India, or any other place.”

Taken aback by the comment, India reacted sharply and said, “Countries commenting on minorities are advised to look at their record before making any observations about others.”

Diplomatic challenge

The Ministry of External Affairs described Khamenei's remarks as “misinformed and unacceptable” in a statement.

Indian experts and former diplomats were equally baffled by the comment as they searched for the reason behind Khamenei's post.

“In my view, referring to India along with Gaza regarding the status of Muslims was myopic, unprovoked, insensitive and ill-informed and it is not conducive to the good ties the two countries enjoy,” said former diplomat Anil Trigunayat, who is also a Distinguished Fellow at the New Delhi-based think-tank Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF).

India has often faced a tough diplomatic challenge in maintaining its ties with Iran even as it developed and improved relations with other countries in the Gulf and West Asia.

It has found the most difficulty in balancing relations with bitter enemies and rivals Iran and Israel.

Both countries are strategic partners of India, but their strained relations have tested Indian diplomatic skills in pursuing ties with the two nations, often leading it to walk a tightrope.

US pressure

New Delhi has also faced pressure from the United States for cooperating with Iran, a country that has been under a range of crippling sanctions from Washington since 1979 when the Islamic Revolution threw out former Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, America’s most trusted and important ally in the region.

Under existing US laws, the possibility that any country or entity that does business with Iran can be subject to secondary sanctions has deterred the government in the past and made many Indian companies reluctant to deal with Tehran.

But Talmiz Ahmad, former diplomat and India’s foremost expert on West Asia, thinks Khamenei is “conveying his country’s unhappiness with the deep, powerful and pervasive communal discourse in India which, seen from Tehran, is being firmly institutionalized in the country”.

Chabahar and Iranian oil imports

Interestingly, the Iranian Supreme Leader’s remark comes within a few months of India signing a 10-year contract with Iran to develop and operate the Shahid Beheshti port at Chabahar on Iran’s south-eastern coast for the 10 years.

The port is important as it allows India to bypass Pakistan’s Karachi and Gwadar ports. A contract was signed in May this year.

India is developing the port as a gateway to exports to Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia, allowing it to bypass the ports of Karachi and Gwadar in rival Pakistan.

Though India has signed the contract on Chabahar, it has scaled down Iranian oil imports to almost zero over the years.

Iran was India's third-largest crude oil supplier until 2018-19, when imports topped $12.1 billion, according to a report in the Business Standard.

In June 2019, the US Presidential administration under Donald Trump placed fresh sanctions on the country due to its nuclear programme. With Washington removing an exception for countries like India to source oil from Iran, the trade was cut off from accessing US dollars.

As a result, Iran went from becoming the ninth largest crude oil exporter in 2018 to the 71st as of 2021, OPEC figures show.

The possibility of the Chabahar deal too, coming under the purview of US sanctions or Washington being able to prevail on New Delhi to not pursue the development of the port cannot be ruled out either.

West impose fresh sanctions on Iran

Last week the US, Britain and Germany imposed fresh sanctions on Iran for allegedly supplying deadly ballistic missiles to Russia.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and British foreign secretary David Lammy, who travelled to Kyiv, alleged that Russia was supplied Fath-360 (BM-120) short-range weapons by Iran.

The two countries also convinced Germany, which was planning a peace conference later in the year to end the Ukraine war and had surprisingly invited Russia to be part of it, to join in imposing new sanctions on Tehran.

The three countries also banned Iranian civilian airline, Iranair, from Europe. It does not fly to the US.

Talmiz Ahmed said, “The considered assessment in Tehran is that India has little interest in pursuing substantial ties with Iran, having chosen Israel and selected the Gulf Coordination Council member states as its principal partners in the region.”

Strong India-Israel ties bother Iran

The Iranian Supreme Leader has been under severe pressure in the wake of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s death in July by alleged Israeli agents, while he was in Tehran to attend the inaugural ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Since the Gaza war began more than a year back Khamenei has been under tremendous pressure from sections within the Iranian establishment to join the conflict with Hamas, Hezbollah and other Iranian affiliates against Israel.

The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran only made it worse.

Some experts say that his anti-Indian remark may have been made because of reports that found India was supplying weapons to Israel.

However, Ahmed argues that none of the countries have so far made any public statement about “India’s arms ties with Israel”.

He pointed out that since most of the states in the region have important ties with Israel, they are hardly in any position to rebuke India.

But some observers conclude that Khamenei had agreed to a liberal leader running to win the country’s presidential election since he hoped that he would be able to reach out and normalise relations with the US and ease the sanction that had debilitated the Iranian economy for years.

However, the fresh set of sanctions indicates that neither America nor its close European allies are willing to ease sanctions on Iran.

Some also feel that allegations of Iran having supplied missiles to Russia not only kill any chances of normalising US-Iranian ties, but also to satisfy the strong pro-Israeli lobby in the West.

Additionally, it also provides the excuse to allow Ukraine to use US-supplied missiles inside Russia as the war gets into a crucial phase before winter sets in and American policy planners get busy with the U.S- presidential election and put all key decisions on hold.