Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh to visit Iran despite regional tensions

Hyderabad

12 March 2012

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's much-anticipated visit to Iran this year can be expected to serve the dual purpose of maintaining India's ties with Iran on an even keel and kickstarting peace talks with Pakistan.

Tehran will host the 16th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in September.

His visit to the Iranian capital will, literally, be couched in nonalignment, coming as it will in the midst of a brewing crisis in West Asia, between Iran and Israel, and between the Shiite and Sunni blocs represented by Iran and Saudi Arabia, respectively.

It will follow the visits by external affairs minister SM Krishna to Israel, and defence minister AK Antony to Saudi Arabia. Also, it will be the first visit by an Indian premier to Iran in over a decade, after Atal Bihari Vajpayee's in 2001.

Prime Minister Singh's proposed visit to Tehran is being described as a manifestation of India's balanced and equitable relationships with various protagonists in the region. A broad-based relationship with the region is a welcome shift in policy, particularly after the narrow-minded pursuit of interests in the run-up to the signing of the India-US nuclear deal.

India and Pakistan are among the 120 members of the NAM. Besides interacting with the host, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Prime Minister Singh is likely to re-engage his Pakistan counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani, on the margins of the summit.

The prime ministers of India and Pakistan last met in November 2011 on the sidelines of the Saarc summit in the Maldives. Incidentally, it was on the margins of the last NAM summit, hosted by Egypt in the Red Sea resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh in 2009, that prime ministers Singh and Gilani agreed to insulate the peace talks from "action on terrorism".

Prime Minister Singh will be hoping that peace with Pakistan will be his legacy, as India heads for elections in 2014. The Singh-Gilani talks will be preceded by Mr Krishna's visit to Islamabad.

The Asian Age, New Delhi

Deccan Chronicle, Bengaluru

Sanctions won't help, a combative Syrian vice foreign minister Faisal Mekdad warns US allies; Damascus banks on IBSA support in UNSC

Syrian vice foreign minister Faisal Mekdad

New Delhi

2 August 2011

Dismissing the latest tranche of sanctions as futile, Syria has said that the European Union (EU) is mistaken if it believes it can extract "political concessions" from the government headed by President Bashar al-Assad.

The EU on Tuesday added Syrian defence minister Ali Habib Mahmud and four others to its sanctions blacklist.

In an exclusive interview to this newspaper in New Delhi, a combative Syrian vice foreign minister Faisal Mekdad accused the US, EU and Israel of "provoking" violence in his country and attempting to do a Libya in Syria.

"It is very clear they want to repeat the same aggression committed by the NATO against Libya on Syria," Mr Mekdad said, alluding to moves by the US and its European allies to revive a draft United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution condemning Syria for its crackdown on protesters.

He is reasonably sanguine that the IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa), all three of whom currently are non-permanent UNSC members, along with Russia and China, would not encourage adoption of the resolution.

"What prevented the Security Council for the last three months from adopting a resolution is the understanding shown by the friends of Syria. I think this time their [the US and its European allies] attempts will fail again," he said.

The only time Mr Mekdad struck an apparently conciliatory note was when he said that Syria was "ready to cooperate with Europe" provided the terms of engagement were "on equal basis with mutual respect and understanding".

However, he was categorical that "if the objective of the US and its European allies was to help Israel preserve its hegemony and exercise its hegemony on the entire region then they are wrong."

"... what we are looking for is just and comprehensive peace where Israel withdraws from the occupied Arab territories from West Bank and Gaza, from the Syrian Golan and from southern Lebanon, and establishment of an independent Palestine state. This is the way we can establish [peace] but their support of Israel and their attempts to give Israel the peace and the land will lead nowhere."

Mr Mekdad noted that Syria was paying a price for being "the last post of resistance against European, American and Israeli pressures."

He added: "Any meeting between post-Hosni Mubarak Egypt and Syria is very dangerous for American and Israeli and Western interests in the region. That is why they have to destroy Syria before it establishes good, normal relations with new Egypt."

Mr Mekdad, who called on external affairs minister SM Krishna on Monday, said the "help and support received from India at international fora is very important."

India on Monday assumed the rotating presidency of the UNSC for the month of August.

Calling for "strategic" ties between India and West Asia generally and Syria in particular, Mr Mekdad said, "Syria and developing countries should now look to the east rather than to the west [and we] need to develop South-South cooperation."

Clippings from The Asian Age (top), Deccan Chronicle's Bengaluru edition (bottom left), and from Deccan Chronicle's Hyderabad edition (bottom right)

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