Iranian foreign minister to meet Krishna today

India is likely to convey Iran on Thursday that its refiners’ move to slash crude oil import from the West Asian country is guided by commercial reasons and should not hurt multi-faceted civilisational ties between the two countries.

External Affairs Minister S M Krishna is expected to explain to his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi that Iran would continue to be a major source of energy for India, despite fresh US and European Union sanctions that would come into force on June 28 and July 1 respectively.

During his talks with Salehi, Krishna is also likely to stress that bilateral relation between the two countries goes beyond India’s requirement of hydrocarbon from Iran. He is likely to stress that Iran provides India a surface link to Afghanistan and countries in Central Asia and the bilateral relation has special geo-strategic significance.

Salehi is arriving in New Delhi on Thursday for a two-day visit to India. Apart from meeting Krishna and National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon, the Iranian foreign minister will also call on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and invite the latter on behalf of President of the Islamic Republic, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for the 16th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement to be held at Isfahan in the West Asian country in August.

Ahmadinejad, himself, called up Singh on May 14 to invite him for the NAM summit. Singh had attended both the 14th and 15th NAM summits in Cuban capital Havana and Egyptian coastal city of Sharm-El-Sheikh in 2006 and 2009 respectively and may well accept the invitation to visit Tehran and Isfahan in August, notwithstanding US frowns on India’s relations with Iran.

Sources said while the prime minister was likely to travel to Iran primarily for a multilateral event, it might also have a bilateral component. Singh also had a long-pending invitation from Ahmadinejad to visit Tehran.

Salehi’s meeting with Krishna is the first high-level contact between India and Iran after New Delhi on March 16 last officially told Tehran that three of its nationals were being suspected to be involved in the February 13 bomb blast on a vehicle of the Israeli Embassy here.

India not only asked Iran to help bring the culprits responsible for the attack, which left a woman official of the Israeli Embassy injured, to justice, but also got Interpol Red Corner Notices issued against the troika. A day after Ahmadinejad called Singh, New Delhi made public that it had set a target to cut down its crude import from the sanction-hit West Asian country by 11 per cent in 2012-13.

India imported 18.50 MMT and 17.44 MMT (provisional) of crude oil from Iran during 2010-11 and 2011-12 respectively. The government on May 15 last informed the Rajya Sabha that the target fixed for import of crude oil from Iran for 2012-13 was approximately 15.5 MMT, subject to techno-commercial and other considerations.