India is in both crises in the Iran-Israel conflict
Iran and Israel are involved in conflict. New Delhi is quite worried as India’s two allies are locked in a fierce conflict with each other.
India does not want to take any policy decision right now on whether or not to take forward relations, especially commercial relations, with the two countries. The country wants to proceed in this matter only after assessing the full picture of the conflict situation. This information is available in the analysis of Reuters, NDTV and Hindustan Times reports.
Iran launched a drone and missile attack on Israel on Saturday. From the beginning, India’s Ministry of External Affairs has been urging both countries to ‘be patient’. At the same time, the country suggested solving the crisis through ‘dialogue and diplomacy’. New Delhi termed the conflict as a ‘humanitarian disaster’.
The media report also said that Modi visited Israel as the first Indian Prime Minister. Modi has a warm personal relationship with the country’s current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is India’s largest supplier of defense equipment after the US, UK, France and Russia. All in all, Israel is a very important partner for India, especially in the security sector.
Meanwhile, India’s relations with Iran are hundreds of years old. After India’s independence in 1947, both countries took the relationship further. Even after the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, the relationship between the two countries did not decline. Iran is one of the major oil suppliers to India. Iran was India’s second-largest oil supplier before sanctions imposed over Tehran’s nuclear program. Even though India has not been able to buy any fuel from Iran for the past four years, the relationship between the two countries is still intact. Iran and India last signed a defense pact in 2022. A year ago, Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar himself visited Iran to discuss the relationship between the two countries. Besides, India has huge investments in Iran. A significant investment project is the construction of Chabahar port in Iran.
India’s Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwale said, ‘We are used to regional conflicts. It is true that if there was no atmosphere of conflict, the export of our products would have increased more.
He further said, ‘Only policy interventions will be made after fully understanding the problems faced by the traders and in this sequence the government must do whatever is necessary to solve the problems.’