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India has always been helpful to Iran: Natwar
Indo-Asian News Service

New Delhi, Oct 7 (IANS) India Friday repeated its commitment to forge "mutually beneficial links" with Iran and asserted that the friendship between the two countries was crucial to ensuring peace and prosperity not only in the region but also in the world.

"It has been India's endeavour to forge mutually beneficial links with Iran in a manner consistent with our national interest," External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh said, while releasing a collection of essays entitled 'Iran Today.'

"India has always taken a helpful stand on issues concerning Iran," Singh told a group of diplomats and academics at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) complex here. Iranian ambassador to India S.Z. Yaghoubi was also present. 

Brought out by the ORF - a think tank on strategic and policy issues - 'Iran Today' analyses political, social, economic and cultural changes 25 years after the Islamic revolution of 1979.

The book, edited by Hamid Ansari, a former ambassador to Iran, is based on an international seminar held here last year in which over 20 leading scholars and Iran specialists participated.

"History is proof that contradictions are best resolved by engagement and dialogue and cooperative efforts of the concerned parties with a view to sincerely implementing the commitments made," Singh added. 

Although he avoided any allusion to India's controversial vote backing a Western-led resolution on Iranian nuclear issue in the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last month, Singh's remarks are seen as an attempt by India to soothe the "hurt feeling" in Tehran. 

India justified the vote saying that it was in fact its behind-the-scenes diplomacy that averted Iran's immediate referral to the UN Security Council for its alleged violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The IAEA board is expected to take a final decision on the issue next month.

Alluding to India's strategic relationship with Iran encompassing cooperation in diverse areas including counter-terrorism, hydrocarbons, trade and commerce and development of transit routes, Singh referred to the historical ties between the two countries. 

"Given the cultural links, the shared identity and security imperatives, our two countries have a responsibility to play a role in ensuring peace and prosperity in the region and the world at large," he said. 

Seeking to allay apprehensions that the India-Iran relations have been put under strain after India's vote in the IAEA, Singh said: " I am confident that India and Iran will continue to remain close partners for promoting their mutual prosperity as well as that of the region."