IAEA resolution against Iran

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After I moved to Finland from India, I have stopped writing about internal political issues of India but this particular issue is related to foreign policy.

We all are aware of the IAEA resolution at Vienna that went against Iran which was drafted by EU-3 countries, France Germany and Britain. Iran is disappointed with it and also singled out India for not supporting it. This issue had become contentious few days back after USA started putting pressure on India, threatening to go back on the nuclear co-operation treaty signed between India and USA just two months back.

There are two angles to look at this whole episode, first was the stand taken by India anti-Iran? Secondly did India buckle under US pressure?

My opinion for the first angle is that we all know that not every time there is voting for any resolution in IAEA, it is usually a consensual decision as was the resolution just before this one, asking Iran to suspend conversion facility at Isfahan. So what if there was no vote this time as well, or even if India had not voted against Iran, the majority of the 35 countries voted against Iran. The original resolution was to refer Iran immediately to Security Council but India did manage to maneuver diplomatically to change the resolution to (1) there would be no immediate reference to Security Council (2) to go for further negotiations, consultations, to work out a solution which is meaningful and acceptable to all which includes Iran. So in my opinion it was better that India voted against Iran but got the resolution changed, now there could be further question that why India didn’t abstain, the answer is that India could not have abstained after making the EU-3 to agree to the changed resolution, how can you abstain from your own piloted resolution. If India would have abstained or voted for Iran, then the resolution to immediately refer Iran to Security Council would have been adopted.

To second point that India buckled under US pressure is not correct, India’s foreign policy is independent and this does not mean that it has to oppose US every time to prove this. India has always maintained the stand that every country has right to peaceful use of Nuclear energy, and for this reason we have not signed the NPT or the CTBT. Had India been always towing the US line then we would have signed all these treaties.

Now since Iran is so much disappointed with India, in the same vein could not India ask Iran about its joining hands with Egypt to add in the UN 60th anniversary document asking NPT to be made mandatory for all countries, wasn’t this against India ?

For India this whole thing was not choice between Tehran and Washington, it has much larger ramifications.