With India signing the long-term bilateral contract with Iran on the Chabahar Port operations in Tehran on Monday, India’s strategic footprint will extend hugely in accessing trade routes to Afghanistan, the Central Asian countries, and even Russia.
The agreement was signed in Teheran between Sarbananda Sonowal, India’s Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways, and Mehrdad Bazrpash, the Iranian Minister for Roads and Urban Development.
Monday’s agreement is a long-term pact valid for 10 years and extendable. A strong foothold in Iran would help India overcome the situational disadvantage that it suffers in the absence of a land route to the Middle East. It would also help India put its bilateral relationship with Iran at an even keel, something that had taken a big hit because of the US sanction.
The latest development can also be seen as India’s answer to the strategically-located port of Gwadar in Pakistan that has been built with Chinese help providing the latter with an important sphere of influence in the region.
Significantly, energy-guzzling and energy-deficient India has traditionally bought energy from both Iran and Russia. With Russia, the other important areas of trade have been food grains, pharma drugs, fertilizers and weapons.
But on Monday, Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson for the US Department of State, had held out the spectre of sanctions on any dealings with Iran. Patel had said: "...any entity, anyone considering business deals with Iran, they need to be aware of the potential risk that they are opening themselves up to and the potential risk of sanctions."
The US position is somewhat unclear, as in 2018, Washington had said that exemptions against sanctions were provided in the case of the Chabahar port.
Chabahar is located in the Sistan-Baluchistan province on Iran’s southwestern coast and only 550 nautical miles (NM) from Gujarat’s Kandla port and 786 NM from Mumbai. Its immense strategic importance lies in the fact that it offers an alternative transit from the Strait of Hormuz for cargo traffic between Central Asian countries and Afghanistan.
Of added significance is the fact that Chabahar is seen as a crucial link in the eastern route of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC).
The INSTC traverses 7,200 km of sea, rail and road links, making it the shortest and the cheapest route possible that links India to Europe. The trade route has already been successfully tested by the state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines Group (IRISL) in coordination with its regional branches in Russia and India.
Goods from St Petersburg to Mumbai on the INSTC will take just 25 days in place of the traditional 40-day-long 8,675 nautical mile circuitous sea route that begins from St Petersburg, proceeds to Rotterdam port in Netherlands, and then takes the Suez Canal to reach India.
