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As the Barack Obama administration tries to impress upon India and other nations to join in the US-led sanctions regime against Iran to isolate that country for its alleged nuclear weapons programme and reduce their energy dependence on Teheran, India's Ambassador to the United States Nirupama Rao noted that India's imports of Iranian oil has been on the decline and predicted it may dissipate even further.
In the question and answer session that followed her keynote address to the conference organised by the George Washington University's Sigur Centre for Asian Studies, titled, India as a Global Power: Contending Views from India, Rao said, "We are in touch with the US government and of course, closely monitoring the developing situation concerning Iran."
"Iran is an important source for our crude petroleum imports. These imports have declined a little -- not very much, but a little -- over the last couple of years, the last two years or so," she said.
Rao said, "Given the sanctions and given the difficulties in operating banking channels vis-a-vis Iran, obviously the volume cannot be expected to go up in such a situation. It may well be that there may be a further decline."
She argued that "India is a responsible country. We don't play outside the system on these issues."
"But it must be remembered," Rao pointed out, "that the Gulf region is terribly important for India -- we have six million Indians working there, and their remittances come home to their families, (and) they are important for our economy."
She added: "It's a source of our energy imports -- India is basically an energy importing country."
Rao noted that the Mangalore Refinery and Petroleum Chemicals Limited, was "geared just to work with Iranian crude -- about 110,000 barrels a day or so. So, it's going to take some time to re-adjust and see how we can move away from the old patterns of how we operate on these issues."
"But we are not for military confrontation. We would not like to see the situation escalate to a point of no return, and I think these avenues of diplomacy and statecraft have not been exhausted."
However, Rao acknowledged that "definitely Iran has to hear the voice of the international community clearly on this issue. Things should not come to a pass where it becomes very difficult to retract positions."
She said, "As far as Iran's nuclear programme is concerned, we have said very clearly that we don't want Iran to weaponise -- we don't want Iran to go down that path at all."
Rao said that Iran "as a Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty member, has certain rights to develop its nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. But it has to work with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the rest of the international community to assuage the concerns that have been raised so that we can move forward hopefully to a situation where tensions are eased."
Earlier, responding to a question on the continuing frustration with Pakistan on Capitol Hill and some lawmakers calling for a complete cut-off of ties with Islamabad because of its perfidy of playing a double game in the US-led war on terror, and that the US should tilt toward India, Rao acknowledged that she was aware of these growing angst in the US Congress.
"The whole issue of terror sanctuaries and the operation of terror groups with transnational operability has become very much a part of this dialogue and discussion (between the US and India)," she said.
"Today, with the homeland security dialogue being initiated between India and the United States, there is much greater clarity of perceptions on each side about what the nature of this threat is and how we need to work toward seeking a solution."
Rao said, "Pakistan is our immediate neighbour, it's a neighbour with which we have had a difficult, complicated and very fractious relationship for over six decades."
"We are engaged in a very conscious effort -- a sincere, honest effort -- to try to see how we can reduce the trust deficit in our relations with Pakistan in order to see how we can move toward a coherent process of normalisation," she said.
Rao acknowledged that "this is not going to be easy," and declared, "There is a lot of difficult terrain ahead. We recognise that. We are realists about it. But the fact is that people on both sides realise there is need for trade and business tires to grow. There is need for travel between the two countries to be facilitated in a smoother way and in the region of Jammu and Kashmir, we have consciously worked on putting in place confidence building measures that enable trade across the Line of Control -- better transportation facilities -- so that people can connect more easily."
But she argued that "fundamentally, we have sought to stress and emphasise to Pakistan that there is need for them to act on the issue of terror. It threatens to destroy the fabric of life in Pakistan itself today."