NEW DELHI, May 20 : External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday said that due to the interest and initiative of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, “we were actually able to finalise a long-term agreement” on the crucial Chabahar port.
Raisi, Abdollahian and a number of other officials were found dead on Monday, a day after their helicopter crashed in northwest Iran, the country’s media reported.
In response to a query on the Chabahar port during an interaction held at the Delhi Tamil Education Association-run school here, Jaishankar said, “We have been trying for almost 20 years now… To have an agreement with Iran.”
“We could have like a short-term agreement… The two people who unfortunately died yesterday in a helicopter crash, the president of Iran and the foreign minister of Iran, because of their interest and their initiative, we were actually able to finalise a long-term agreement which is very important because if you look today, one of the big things in the world is, how do you make connectivity corridors,” Jaishankar said.
India on May 13 signed a 10-year agreement to operate the Chabahar port on the Gulf of Oman, providing Indian goods a gateway to reach landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia.
The Chabahar port agreement is something bigger than a port, it is part of a connectivity change that is being looked at, the external affairs minister said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has termed India’s signing of the contract to operate the strategic Iranian port of Chabahar as an important milestone and said New Delhi will work to provide connectivity to landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia region to promote trade and commerce.
In an interview with PTI on Sunday in Bhubaneswar, Modi said India will work to promote regional connectivity, trade and commerce through not just the Chabahar port but also through the International North-South Transport Corridor as also the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor.
Since coming to power in 2014, Modi said, his government gave precedence to Chabahar Port. “In 2016, during my visit to Iran, the trilateral agreement between India, Iran and Afghanistan was signed, to provide the much-needed connectivity to Afghanistan.”
Earlier on Monday, EAM Jaishankar in a post on X said that India stood with the people of Iran at this time of tragedy, as he expressed shock over the death of Raisi and Amir-Abdollahian. (PTI)
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