India-Iran relations have improved considerably because of growing energy and trade dependency and greater recognition on both sides of the conjunction of strategic interests. India should not allow relations with a potential regional ally to be disrupted by empty American threats, an international relations expert says.
In a recent interview, India’s former vice-president Hamid Ansari said, “Our relationship with Iran has been built carefully by all past governments as Iran for us is not just an energy supplier… For us, Iran is a land power on the other side of Pakistan that provides us with an alternative route to Afghanistan.”
Ansari, veteran diplomat and a former ambassador to Iran in the 1990s, made the rare remarks in response to a threat by the controversial US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, that unless India drastically reduces its energy imports from Iran by November 4, it would be subject to American sanctions, Mohammed Ayoob wrote in a piece in the well-read English-language newspaper The Hindu on Monday.