Minister of Foreign Affairs S. Jaishankar
NEW DELHI: Chancellor S. Jaishankar will make a stop in Tehran on Tuesday en route to Moscow to attend the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the SCO‘ meeting.
He would be the second cabinet minister after Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, who also made a stop on his return trip from Moscow. While officials said the stop was a “technical stop” primarily for refueling, Jaishankar will meet his counterpart Javad Zarif, incidentally, the first meeting since the pandemic occurred.
The Moscow meeting will also be the first time the foreign minister has left the country since the pandemic. On Monday, Jaishankar described the situation in LAC as “very serious”, and that “in-depth talks at the political level” were needed.
While the focus of the next visit will be on the meeting between Jaishankar and Wang Yi and the prospect of a resolution of the crisis in Eastern ladakh, the meeting, although brief, with Zarif will be equally important.
India is clearly closing in on Iran in the context of a couple of events, the most important of which is the prospect of the Taliban regaining their dominant position in Afghanistan and what that would mean for regional security and international terrorism. As the United States pushes for intra-Afghan dialogue in Qatar between the Taliban and the Afghan government, both India and Iran will face the prospect of radical extremists returning to the saddle in Kabul, supported by Pakistan.
Iran has compromised with the Taliban in the past, with the common purpose of expelling the Americans. With that turned into reality, the sectarian division is likely to come to the fore. India still hopes to be a target. India is exploring whether there may be common ground with Tehran, although no one is talking about reviving the northern alliance of the 1990s.
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