With eyes set on the commissioning of Iran’s strategic deep sea port of Chabahar by next year, Indian Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari visited Tehran early this month. The visit was meant to push for early completion of a project which Indian policy makers believe could not only give access to India in the Middle East, Gulf and Central Asia but also counter Pakistani clout in this region.
Though officially Gadkari’s visit was aimed at attending the inauguration of Hasan Rouhani as president of Iran for the second four-year term, it was actually meant to review deepening ties between Iran and India.
According to the Indian media, Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally decided to send Gadkari as his special envoy who has been India’s point man for the Chabahar port. The port has been proposed to give access to India, to the landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia through its Jawahar Lal Nehru and Kandla ports in the west coast, bypassing Pakistan.
“The decision (of deputing Gadkari) was taken as shipping ministry is undertaking development works in Iran and the minister enjoys a great repute with the (Iranian) nation,” the Indian media quoted an official as saying.
“(It) is a most appropriate, timely and thoughtful decision. ‘Appropriate’ – because it is a signal that India attaches high importance to relations with Iran,” it added.
In recent months, India stepped up its work on Chabahar, which is less than 100 kilometres from Gwadar, and is now planning to install equipment worth 150 million dollars there.
The procurement of the equipment, including Rail Mounted Quey Crane has been finalised and its installation is expected to start soon.
India has also built a 218 kilometre road linking Iranian city of Delaram with Afghanistan’s Zaranj. Iran has also proposed to India to build a rail link between Chabahar and Zahedan.
India also sees Chabahar as an important base for promotion of its strategic interests in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz and that’s why according to the Indian officials Modi specifically asked his shipping minister to go to Tehran “given our interests there and in the region.”
India wants to use Chabahar as leverage for the International North-South Transport Corridor connecting the Indian Ocean and Gulf with the Caspian Sea through Iran and then to St Petersburg in Russia and northern Europe.
"In the meetings, both sides positively assessed the progress in implementation of the decisions taken during the Indian Prime Minister's visit to Iran last year, including the progress of Chabahar Port. Both sides reiterated their commitment to complete and operationalise the port at the earliest," Indian ministry of shipping said in a statement after Gadkari’s visit.
Sovereign states are free to develop their ties in whatever form they want unless they are directed against a third country. Therefore, Pakistan or any other countries should not have any objection over the progressing ties between Tehran and New Delhi and they should also not have any objections over Pakistan’s relations with any other country.
Though last year President Rouhani in his meeting with Nawaz Sharif, who was Pakistan’s prime minister at the time, had dispelled the impression that Iran is developing Chabahar with the help of India to prevent Gwadar port from becoming a major hub of international trade, the Indian media and opinion makers have repeatedly highlighted this project as a rival to Gwadar.
MK Bhadrakumar, a former Indian diplomat, in a recent article contended that Chabahar could be the “first significant footfall in an Indian variant of ‘Belt and Road’ initiative.”
The comments mean that the Indian strategists consider Chabahar as a lynchpin for India’s answer to China’s ‘Belt and Road’ initiative, under which it is developing a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) comprising a network of roads, railways and pipelines across Pakistan.
The CPEC has been a thorn in the eyes of India from day one, and Modi has personally raised the issue with the Chinese leaders, particularly raising objections over plans to run the project through Kashmir.
Neither Chabahar nor several other projects undertaken by the Indian companies in Iran could rival Gwadar and the CPEC in terms of size and significance, but comments from the Indian officials and strategists reflected in the Indian media have exposed their real intensions behind these projects and reinforce suspicions that the real aim behind these projects by India is to encircle Pakistan.
Notwithstanding the hype being created by India around the development projects it is carrying out in Iran to gain access to Afghanistan and Central Asia, Pakistan offers the cheapest and easiest transit route connecting South Asia with western and central Asia.
India has to ship its goods through sea to Chabahar before they are transported to Afghanistan and Central Asia, but Pakistan provides a straight overland route that skips the sea.
Despite all these merits for the Pakistani transit route, Islamabad has to intensify its efforts to cement its relations with Tehran to deny any chance to New Delhi to draw a wedge between the two neighbouring countries.
It is heartening to see that Senate chairman Raza Rabbani headed a high level delegation to Iran to represent Pakistan at Rouhani’s inauguration, but Pakistan needs to take more initiatives to boost bilateral relations with its western neighbour.
Absence of a foreign minister was a big handicap for Pakistan over the past four years to take diplomatic initiatives but now that a full fledge foreign minister has been appointed in the cabinet of new Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the government should make maximum use of his good offices to bolster its ties with other countries, particularly with traditional friends.
However, it seems that in the wake of the general elections due next year, domestic politics is the main priority for the new cabinet of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government.
Pakistan is facing a host of security and economic challenges as well as acute energy shortages. Our policy makers are confident that the operationalisation of CPEC as well as import of LNG from Qatar would mitigate the power and gas shortages to a large extent, but Pakistan still needs to take concrete steps to fully overcome its energy crisis.
The previous Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) government had concluded an agreement with Iran for the construction of a gas pipeline, but not much progress had been made under the PML-N government because of western sanctions on Iran.
Those curbs were eased when Iran signed a deal in 2015 with the United States-led five world powers curtailing its nuclear programme; tensions though have flared again between Iran and the United States following the election of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections. Last month, the Trump administration imposed new sanctions on Iran over its missile programme.
Prime Minister Abbasi has been dealing with the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project as petroleum minister in the Nawaz Sharif cabinet, and it is hoped that he would seriously look into the possibility of resuscitating this vital project.
Moreover, Pakistan and Iran had also agreed last year to boost bilateral trade to five billion dollars annually in five years.
Iran also exports 100 megawatt of electricity to the Pakistani border areas, and plans to set up industrial zones in those regions.
Iran has shown its willingness to join the CPEC, and time is ripe for Pakistan to push for a dialogue with Tehran on this issue.
Increased commercial ties and security cooperation could help overcome misunderstanding between the two countries which could go a long way in fostering their bilateral ties which in turn would contribute significantly to regional peace and tranquillity.
The writer is a senior journalist based in Islamabad
