Something very interesting happened over the weekend.
I hope you all must have read the proposed India-Iran natural gas pipeline project through Pakistan.
India was about to go ahead with this project ignoring US interests. This, in fact, after the increased India-US relationships since the Bush administration. Bush also had agreed to give co-operation in nuclear energy technologies, including help with the construction of nuclear plants.
Even after that, India was in favor of the Iran gas pipeline project, which had 'disappointed' US. Condoleeza Rice, when she came to India talked about it. When Manmohan visited US, Bush talked about it.
India had insisted that it needs energy to sustain the current growth rate and said it is going ahead with Iran pipeline project.
But now, an IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) resolution drafted by European Union's 3 biggest powers - France, Britain and Germany, and backed by US was adopted by IAEA.
The resolution requires Iran to be reported to the security council over a failure to convince the agency that its nuclear program was entirely peaceful.
22 votes was passed in favor of the resolution, 12(including Russia, China and South Africa) abstained and 1(Venezuela) voted against it.
Now comes the interesting part.
India, which had opposed the resolution, voted in favor of it this weekend.
This has surprised many.
Analysts speculate that India voted in favor, due to US pressure and not to jeopardize the relation with US.
India disagrees that their decision is in no way connected to the nuclear deal with US.
Iran officials say they will review the decisions taken by India and South Korea.
The next few days will be interesting to watch on this issue.
Pakistan on the other hand abstained from voting.
Countries who voted in favor of the resolution:
United States, Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Argentina, Belgium, Ghana, Ecuador, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Slovakia, Japan, Peru, Singapore, South Korea, and India
Countries who abstained from voting:
Pakistan, Algeria, Yemen, Brazil, China, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and Vietnam
Countries who voted against:
Venezuela
The above 35 countries are the IAEA board members for 2004-2005.
2 comments:
interesting...
Both India and US need each other for reasons more than one! india will not (i choose to use will not rather than cannot) take a very hard stance against US. These things happen a lot in the so called "international politics". India is lobbying big time for a permanent seat in UN and it just makes sense to play the cards right at this time!
Again I was reading about the pipeline across Pakistan - it is not only a very very expensive project - but there is a running cost to safe guard the pipeline - 365x24x7 - which may prove vital too!
Do you know the transit fee to be paid to Pakistan for the proposed pipeline project was around $700 million every year?
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