NEW DELHI: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will be seeking billions ofdollars of Indian investment during a visit to New Delhi, diplomats said, atrip that comes amid US pressure to review a 2015 international nucleardeal and re-impose sanctions on Iran.
India is trying to develop the port of Chabahar on Iran’s east coast as away to gain access the markets of central Asia as well as Afghanistan byby-passing Pakistan.
But progress is slow because of concern that President Donald Trump’sadministration may eventually scrap the Iran nuclear deal.
Soon after the sanctions were lifted, India said its firms could spend asmuch as $20 billion on not just the port but also petrochemical plants,railway lines and other industries in the areas. But progress has only beenmade on the port.
Iranian officials say the slowdown is largely because India has becomehesitant following Trump’s attempts to undermine the Iran nuclear deal andthat Rouhani would be urging India to make good on its commitments.
“There are a number of projects for expansion of ties in the pipeline thatnot only will be in the interests of both nations but also in the interestof the region,” Iran’s ambassador to India, Gholamreza Ansari, said in anational day speech last week.
Rouhani, who arrives in the southern city of Hyderabad on Thursday, wherehe will address a Muslim congregation, will hold talks with Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on Saturday.
The two sides are expected to sign an agreement allowing India to runoperations in the first phase of the Chabahar port project.
The port is about 72 km from the Pakistani port of Gwadar, which China isdeveloping.’American interests’
The plan is for India to equip and operate two berths in the port with acapital investment of $85.21 million on a 10-year lease.
Modi has said the government could spend up to $500 million on the port,India’s first major overseas port venture, as it tries to offeralternatives to China’s One Belt One Road initiative to build trade andtransport links across Asia.
But the uncertainty over US policies has cast a shadow over the project,officials say.
India is struggling to get equipment such as cranes for the port becauseWestern banks were not ready to facilitate transactions.
“They don’t want to antagonise the US,” said an Indian source involved inthe port’s development but who is not authorised to speak to the media.
“The banks’ American interests are more important … the moment youmention that the destination is Iran they don’t come forward.”
Iran had hoped for swift reintegration into global trade after the easingof sanctions in 2016 but its failure to persuade Western banks to acceptIranian business has been the main roadblock to rehabilitation.
Indian officials said the two sides were also trying to narrow differencesover a giant gas field that an Indian consortium led by state-run Oil andNatural Gas Corp discovered a decade ago.
India wants to develop the Farzad B gas field but Iran says the terms ithas offered are not profitable. A delegation from Iran’s Pars Oil and GasCompany is holding talks.