India, Iran to finalise working group on Chabahar project

India, Iran to finalise working group on Chabahar project

India’s shipping secretary K Mohandas, who is in Tehran, is set to finalise a joint working group on the Chabahar Port project with his Iranian counterpart. The Chabahar Port, which is New Delhi’s strategic link to Af-Pak region, is just 72 km west of Pakistan’s Gwadar port which is being built by China.

Making investments in the Chabahar Port on the Sistan-Balochistan province in Iran will give leverage to India in the region and by making it as an important transit link it will give India an access to Afghanistan, Central Asia and Eurasia thereby reducing the landlocked Kabul’s utter dependence on Pakistan. The Chabahar Port project is set to bypass Islamabad.

As reported by The Pioneer, Mohandas-led delegation is the first such high-level team visiting Iran over the port in a while. His visit will conclude on November 30.

Iran, which is in the midst of sanctions from the west over its alleged nuclear proliferation programme, believes that this port collaboration between Delhi and Tehran is the “minimum” that is necessary between the two countries for the development of the people and the region.

Chabahar could be a “multimodal link” port as the Chabahar-Bam Link will help in establishing link to Russia via Iran. Despite lukewarm relations between New Delhi and Tehran Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali Fathollahi had visited India for three days in August to discuss a wide range of issues, including coordinated efforts to stabilise Afghanistan.