New Delhi: Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid said Wednesday that India’s good relations with Iran and the United States make it able to “provide the linkages” for any dialogue between Tehran and Washington, . Dispatch News Desk reports.
“We remain good friends with the US and we are extremely good friends with Iran,” he told a conference on the Gulf nation. “It places us in a very significant position to be able to bridge the gaps and to provide the linkages necessary for a meaningful dialogue (between the United States and Iran),” Khurshid said, according to the Press Trust of India.
Energy-hungry India has been walking a diplomatic tightrope in the past few years as it continues to pursue good ties and to import oil from Iran while deepening relations with the United States.
Khurshid noted India had not accepted the “unilateral sanctions” slapped by Washington on Iran to curb its uranium enrichment programme and had gone ahead with its “regular engagement.” India, which is heavily dependent on oil from Iran and other countries to power its economy, has cut back on fuel imports from the Gulf nation.
India is in a position to give Iran the kind of “comfort, advice and handholding” required in the “very, very critical and crucial discussions and dialogue that Iran needs to do”, Khurshid said.
