No blanket arrangement with Iran on ship movement: Jaishankar

With two India-bound ships getting a safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz in the last few days, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that there was no “blanket arrangement” with Iran for Indian-flagged ships and that “every ship movement is an individual happening”.

Jaishankar has had four telephone conversations with Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi since the conflict with the US and Israel started on February 28.

In an interview to UK-based daily Financial Times, Jaishankar said that negotiations between New Delhi and Tehran, which allowed two Indian-flagged gas tankers to pass through the Strait on Saturday, were an example of what diplomacy could achieve. “I am at the moment engaged in talking to them and my talking has yielded some results,” he said.

“This is ongoing. If it is yielding results for me, I would naturally continue to look at it,” he said. “Certainly, from India’s perspective, it is better that we reason and we co-ordinate and we get a solution than we don’t.”

“So if that sort of allows other people to engage, I think the world is better off for it,” he said.

He was referring to the passage of Indian-flagged vessels Shivalik and Nanda Devi. The tankers, carrying approximately 92,712 metric tonnes of LPG, are currently en route to the ports of Mundra and Kandla.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi told CBS on Sunday that Iran was “open” to countries that want to discuss “safe passage of their vessels”. However, he denied that Iran had received anything in exchange, and cited a “history of dealing with each other… which is the basis on which I engaged”.

“It’s not an exchange issue,” he said. “India and Iran have a relationship. And this is a conflict that we regard as something very unfortunate.”

“These are still early days. We have many more ships there. So while this is a welcome development, there is continuing conversation because there is continued work on that,” he said.

Ahead of the meeting with EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday, he said, “I’d be happy to share with [EU capitals] what we are doing… I know many of them have had conversations [with Tehran] as well.”

“Each relationship frankly, in a way stands on its own merits,” he said when asked if European countries could follow India’s arrangement. “So now, it’s very hard for me to compare this with some other relationship which may or may not have these.”

Meanwhile, India has evacuated over 550 of its nationals from Iran through Armenia, with External Affairs Minister Jaishankar thanking Yerevan on Monday for facilitating the land-border transit.

New Delhi has been urging Indian nationals stuck in Iran to cross over to Armenia for subsequent travel to India in view of the escalating conflict in West Asia.

“Thank the Government and the people of Armenia for facilitating the safe evacuation of over 550 Indian nationals from Iran so far,” Jaishankar, currently on a visit to Brussels, said on social media. “Appreciate their support in these challenging times.”

MEA had said that around 9,000 Indians were staying in Iran, and the government of India is assisting those who want to travel to Azerbaijan and Armenia for their subsequent return to India.

Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 25 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting on foreign affairs for more than 17 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism ‘2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury’s special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More

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