FCC president: Iran irreplaceable for India
He expressed optimism that Chabahar Port would be a game changer in relations between India and Iran and their foreign trade.
Shifting to mutual ties, Narayan said Iran is a very great country with which India has always had close civilizational links and very good relations.
“The two countries’ leaders have paid frequent official visits to each other’s countries. I had the good fortune of visiting Iran along with the ninth prime minister of India, P. V. Narasimha Rao, in the mid-90s. Driving through the streets of Tehran I was reminded so much of India and Old Delhi — a walled city of Delhi, India, founded as Shahjahanabad in 1638, when Shah Jahan, the Mughal emperor at the time, decided to shift the Mughal capital from Agra.”
He added Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Iran some time ago, adding Iranian ministers of foreign affairs, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and oil, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, have also paid visits to India.
FCC head stressed that oil is a very important connecting bridge between India and Iran as New Delhi spends $75 billion annually on importing crude oil.
He put India’s oil consumption at two billion barrels per annum, adding Iran, along with Iraq and Saudi Arabia, has always been a major oil supplier to his country.
Commenting on his country’s crude imports from Venezuela, he said the South American state is so far from India.
The FCC president said in addition, as there is no sea route connecting the two states, it does not make sense economically to rely heavily on the Latin American country as a major crude supplier.
Narayan added India and Iran are almost neighbors, adding with the connectivity the speedy development of Chabahar Port will provide the two states with, it would be a lot cheaper for New Delhi to purchase oil from Iran.
“A major portion of India’s total oil imports are from Iran.”
A February report by livemint.com said Iran zipped past the likes of Venezuela and Nigeria to become India’s third largest oil supplier as easing Western sanctions enabled Indian companies to increase purchases from the Middle East country.
It added Iran had overtaken Venezuela, Nigeria and the UAE to become India’s third largest supplier in April-december 2016.
The report said Iran had sold 19.8 million tons of crude oil to India in the first nine months of the FY17 behind Saudi Arabia’s 30.3 million tons and Iraq’s 29.1 million tons.
Describing Iran as a great civilization, Narayan said the country’s authors and films are very popular among Indians.
Established on March 7, 1997, IORA is a 21-member intergovernmental organization which seeks to expand regional economic cooperation and strengthen mutually beneficial collaboration through a consensus-based approach.
The Indian Ocean Rim defines a distinctive area in international politics consisting of coastal states bordering the Indian Ocean. Iran is a member state.
Founded in 1958, the FCC is a club of professional journalists working for the international media. It is a group of more than 500 journalists and photographers covering India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives, Afghanistan and Tibet. The FCC is a member of the International Association of Press Clubs.