India, Iran hold Foreign Office consultations

The fifteenth round of Foreign Office consultations between India and Iran were held here on Monday.

Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale led the Indian delegation, while Deputy Foreign Minister Dr Seyyed Abbas Araghchi led the Iranian side.

As per a release by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the two sides reviewed and positively assessed the progress in implementation of decisions taken during Iran's President Hassan Rouhani's state visit to India in February, especially for enhancing connectivity and strengthening cooperation in trade and economic issues and in the promotion of people-to-people exchanges.

Views were also exchanged on regional and international issues of mutual interest, including the efforts being made by various parties to address issues that have arisen over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCOPA) or the Iran nuclear deal.

It was agreed to maintain the momentum of mutually beneficial multifaceted bilateral cooperation and exchanges between the two sides and to hold the next round of joint commission meeting at the level of External Affairs Minister (EAM) in November in Iran.

Araghchi also called on the Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs M.J. Akbar.

On late Sunday night, Aragchi arrived in the national capital to hold Foreign Office consultations with the MEA. His visit came days after Iran's assured India that it will keep giving flexibility to it in oil supply.

His visit also comes after a senior Iranian diplomat Massoud Rezvanian Rahaghi warned India with retaliatory measures if India reduced oil purchase.

Rahaghi had said that if India plans to replace Iran with countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the US and others for the 10 percent of its oil demand then it may lose all privileges Iran has offered to India.

However, a day later, Iran embassy issued a clarification with regard to Rahaghi's statement saying, "Iran has always been a reliable energy partner for India and others, seeking a balanced oil market and rational prices of oil which ensures the interests of both countries as consumer and supplier. Iran understands the difficulties of India in dealing with the unstable energy market and it has done and will do its best to ensure the security of oil supply to India through offering various flexibility measures which facilitate our bilateral trade in particular Indian export to Iran."

"India is a sovereign nation and taking into account many criteria including its friendly relations with supplier countries, market factors, geopolitical and geo-economical considerations and potentials and reliability of the oil suppliers chooses its energy partners," it added.

India-Iran relations span millennia marked by meaningful interactions. The two countries established diplomatic links on March 15, 1950. They have in place bilateral consultative mechanisms at various levels which meet regularly.

Both countries enjoy economic and commercial ties covering many sectors.