India pushes Iran port to counter China BRI |
With China trying to woo Iran with ambitious projects, India has proposed the inclusion of the Chabahar Port on the south-eastern coast of Iran in the International North-South Transport Corridor. This is being seen as a counterweight to the Belt-and-Road-Initiative (BRI) of China. To counter China`s controversial cross-continental connectivity project, India has called for expansion of the INSTC to include Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on 4th March said India welcomed the interest of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan to join the INSTC. He said, “India has also proposed the inclusion of Chabahar in the INSTC route. I am hopeful that during the INSTC Coordination Council meeting, member states would agree to the expansion of the INSTC route to include the Chabahar Port and also agree on expanding the membership of this project.”. India, Russia, and Iran had jointly conceived the INSTC in September 2000 as a multi-modal transportation corridor, which would link the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf with the Caspian Sea through Iran and move onward to North Europe via Russia. Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Oman, Armenia, Syria, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan joined the ambitious project later. Though the INSTC project has not made much progress on the ground over the past two decades, Prime Minister Narendra Modi`s government is learnt to have now decided to fast-track it, ostensibly to counter China`s BRI, which has been mired in controversies due to the communist country`s predatory lending policies that lure smaller nations into debt-traps. Dr. Jaishankar also suggested establishing an eastern corridor of the INSTC through Afghanistan in order to maximize its potential.
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