Delhi to back Iran's bid to join Indian Ocean Rim

India has said that it would back Iran's bid to join the Indian Ocean Rim Countries, saying it believed that Teheran could play an important role in the organisation.

"India attaches importance to the initiative. Iran is not a member of the organisation but has shown interest in joining it. India will support (the move),'' External Affairs Minister Inder Kumar Gujral told reporters in Teheran on Friday evening.

Gujral said foreign ministers of the countries involved in the initiative were due to meet in Mauritius on March 6 and 7 to discuss the framework of the final charter of the organisation.

He said the meeting would discuss, among other things, the desirability of setting up a secretariat for the organisation and ways of strengthening cooperation among member-countries.

A summit of the Indian Ocean Rim initiative member-countries was likely to be held later this year in Oman, he said.

Gujral is in Teheran to attend the ninth session of the Indo-Iranian Joint Commission to be held in Teheran later on Saturday. Gujral and his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Velayati, will co-chair the meeting.

Gujral said India attached great importance to its relations with Iran, given its position as a major oil exporting country and its strategic location vis-a-vis central asia.

''We have had traditional and long-standing interests in Central Asia and Iran has acquired added importance to us because of that,'' he explained.

Among other things, the joint commission will discuss a trilateral transit agreement between India, Iran, and Turkmenistan, which will facilitate smoother movement of Indian goods to Central Asia through Iran.

More importantly, India has proposed to Iran the construction of a new railway route that would cut the distance to Turkmenistan by some 700 kms.

''The present rail link is through Teheran, which means an extra 700 kms. A shorter route would help us,'' he said.

Gujral said the project had been examined by both sides and ''been looked at with favour.''

But, he felt, it might not be possible to implement it at present because of the heavy costs involved and the difficulties in tying up financies. ''We will take it up as soon as funds can be mobilised,'' he said.

Gujral said the trilateral agreement had been discussed at great length and only some technical details remained to be tied up.

''We hope we can finalise it at this meeting. Otherwise, we will have another round of discussions in two months in Delhi,'' he said.

The joint commission has six sub-committes dealing with subjects like agriculture and rural development, trade, industry, energy, transportation, and scientific, technical and consular matters.

Gujral said the sub-committees had met earlier this week to prepare for the joint commission and identified new areas of cooperation and reiterated their interest in various proposals made earlier.

Among the new areas identified for cooperation between India and Iran is the setting up of medical and health care facilities in Iran.

UNI