Afghan chaos: An opportunity for India and Iran to strengthen ties

The aim of the recent visits of External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to Tehran was to ensure peace and stability in Afghanistan besides rekindling the bilateral relations between India and Iran. The first visit to Iran in July 2021 was related to bilateral, regional and international issues as well as the COVID-19 situation.

Jaishankar was the first foreign leader to meet Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who was then president-elect. However, the second visit of Jaishankar to Tehran has become more crucial in the context of the sharp escalation of the struggle for power in Afghanistan between the Taliban and Afghan security forces. Jaishankar was visiting Tehran for the second time in less than two months to attend the swearing-in of Ebrahim Raisi. Jaishankar’s presence at the inauguration ceremony of President Raisi clearly indicated the political weightage as well as New Delhi’s strong desire to rebuild and mend ties with Iran.

With the withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s takeover in Kabul, the diplomatic situation is complicated for both India and Iran. The Taliban’s violent means to consolidate power in Afghanistan have resulted in a huge wave of refugees fleeing Afghanistan to the neighbouring countries like India and Iran. This huge Afghan refugee population is also looking for asylum in India, which could strain the Indian economy. In such a scenario, India once again looked forward to reframe ties with Iran with a ray of hope as a new president in the White House raised hopes of a prospective breakthrough between Iran and the US related to talks on the nuclear deal and removal of sanctions. The increased pace of activities vis-à-vis Chabahar port’s cargo-handling capacity to enhance its trade with Afghanistan has been jeopardised with Taliban forces running Afghanistan. The fact is that the expeditious actions of the Taliban to consolidate power in Kabul affect both India and Iran and have, in fact, become a matter of concern for both the nations.

Furthermore, with both China and Pakistan supporting the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the situation leaves India to partner with Iran in its goals vis-à-vis Afghanistan. However, it has become more challenging for India to convince Iran on its actions related to Afghanistan.

There is indeed a strong convergence of interests between the two countries. Both India and Iran desire a stable Afghanistan to be run by a democratically elected government that is neither dominated by the Taliban nor under the thumb of Pakistan. The Taliban gaining power in Kabul has made Indian fears of a repeat of the 1990s situation come true. For India, this would mean an Afghanistan that was the haven for anti-India terror groups supported by the Pakistani military establishment; whereas for Iran, it would mean a threat to the Shias in the region as well as extensive drug trade through its borders. Despite Iran’s continuous engagement with the Taliban, the former fears that the Sunni extremist Taliban might support other like-minded terror outfits that could use Afghanistan as a base for terror attacks in the region, especially against the Shias. The Indian diplomatic mission in Afghanistan is in full closure now with its staff returning to India via Iranian airspace through a special Indian Air Force aircraft.

India-Iran: Rebuilding ties

Iran and India had signed the New Delhi Declaration in 2003 known as the ‘Tehran Declaration’, which defined the framework of the strategic defence pact between the two nations. Consequently, India and Iran can facilitate the additional dimension of security collaboration in their bilateral relations. However, Iran’s growing bonhomie with China affects Indo-Iranian ties to some extent in the similar manner as India’s growing relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia in the West Asian region. But both India and Iran visualise Taliban-controlled Afghanistan as a threat to their national unity and security, which could become a mutual concern, eventually leading Iran and India to come together and strengthen their bilateral cooperation particularly on security matters.

The fall of the democratically elected Afghan government under Ashraf Ghani and US ending its 20-year-long War on Terror against Afghanistan has made countries like India and Iran to weigh their options in order to deal with the emerging situation in Afghanistan.

The prevailing situation in Afghanistan will indirectly affect India’s Chabahar venture with Iran, which was purposely developed to enhance trade with Afghanistan and Central Asia. However, the aim of New Delhi and Tehran is to salvage the connectivity route created via Chabahar port. The bilateral relations between India and Iran suffered a major setback when former US president Donald Trump imposed stringent sanctions on Iran, which also forced India to cut back its oil trade with Iran to almost negligible levels. However, India’s trade and development related to Chabahar port were spared, even though there had been concerns in India and Iran related to the pace of work being done at Chabahar port by India. At that time, Iran was among the top three energy suppliers. This situation is further aggravated by the Iranian move of developing a railway line—the approximately 628km-long Chabahar-Zahedan railway—as well as the Farzad B gas field sans Indian involvement. This has further deteriorated the relations between the two nations.

President Ebrahim Raisi has indicated the desire of the Iranian government to develop ties with the neighbouring nations in the region, especially India. He further elaborated that India and Iran would collaborate on various sectors in the economic and commercial fields as well as in the fields of new and developing technologies. Though both the sides have indicated strong desire to collaborate on various issues and aspects, there are some factors that also could hamper progress in developing the bilateral relations between India and Iran.

At the foremost level are the divergent views that both the nations hold regarding the role of the US in the West Asian region. In all of this, with the increasing camaraderie between India and the US in the past decade, arguably, leading to a strategic partnership, it has become a tightrope walk for India during the escalation of tensions between Iran and the US. This eventually resulted in the negligible trade between India and Iran. Furthermore, India’s relations with the Arab nations, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have also deepened in the past few years. On the other hand, Iran’s relations with the Gulf Arab nations have deteriorated especially with Saudi Arabia, which resulted in huge debates regarding sectarianism in the region. In addition, India’s strong strategic and defence relations with Israel could create troubles in India-Iran relations. In future, these bilateral relations of India with the West Asian region could test New Delhi’s balancing skills. In such a scenario, it becomes necessary and pertinent for India to carefully tread in its relations with Iran so as not to antagonise this relationship further.

Conclusion

It cannot be ruled out that the two recent visits by Jaishankar have provided a platform to India to give fresh impetus to ties, especially at a time when both India and Iran are concerned about the emerging situation in Afghanistan. In the contemporary scenario, what draws both India and Iran closer are the concerns related to Taliban’s Sunni extremism and its control of Kabul, which could be detrimental to the security of both India and Iran. Therefore, it is necessary for both India and Iran to converge and collaborate in order to prevent the Taliban’s emerging hegemony over Afghanistan, which can intensely alter the geopolitics of the South Asian region as well as have serious repercussions for West Asian region as well.

This is significant in the light of India being the major stakeholder in the peace and stability of Afghanistan due to its major investments as part of its aid and reconstruction activities in war-ravaged Afghanistan. In addition, India has been continuously supporting a national peace and reconciliation process for Afghanistan that is Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled—an idea also favoured and supported by Iran.

The challenges on the Afghanistan front could also have a broader impact on India-Iran bilateral ties along with some points for convergence between the two nations. India had hoped that Jaishankar’s recent diplomatic outreach to Iran would help reset bilateral ties that have been strained over the past few years. New Delhi was desirous of this also because of the emerging situation in Afghanistan, which made it visualise Iran as its ally in its actions vis-à-vis Afghanistan. However, in the recent past, India was doing the precarious balancing act between the US and Iran. Plus, Iran signing a 25-year strategic agreement with China in March 2021 has raised apprehensions in India. China is India’s main strategic adversary and while New Delhi has strengthened its strategic ties with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the pact can become an issue of concern for India. In all of this, Afghanistan can become the most viable avenue for bilateral cooperation between India and Iran. But whether this can happen and evolve into an effective partnership while concurrently helping improve India-Iran ties remains to be seen in future.

Anu Sharma is an Associate Fellow at Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi.

The views expressed here are of the author and does not depict those of the organisation.