A day after India and Iran agreed to accelerate work on the strategic Chabahar project, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Jaishankar, who is on a two-day Iran visit, co-chaired the 19th Joint Commission Meeting on Sunday with his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif.
The Chabahar port which is being jointly developed by India, Iran and Afghanistan will provide a gateway for trade with central Asian nations by the three countries. It is located on the Indian Ocean in the Sistan and Baluchestan province of Iran.
The Foreign Minister also met Admiral Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, and held wide-ranging discussions with him on regional security and bilateral relations.
Jaishankar's visit comes in the wake of India-US two-plus-two ministerial level talks.
Moreover, United States and Iran are engaged in a standoff over latter's nuclear programme and Washington's 'unilaterlal' decision of doing away with the Obama-era agreement.
Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron sought to defuse the standoff between Iran and the United States over the Iranian nuclear programme. Trump, on the other hand, had accused France’s President Emmanuel Macron of getting in the way of US policy and sending “mixed signals” to Tehran.
Last year in November, the Trump administration had granted a six-month waiver to India, China, Greece, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey and South Korea to continue importing oil from Iran.
However, in the wake of American waiver refusal and threats of secondary sanctions, India had stopped purchasing Iranian oil from May. Iran supplied 10 per cent of India's oil needs and the country has number of Iran specific refineries.
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