NEW DELHI: India is getting ready to play a complex diplomatic manoeuvre on Iran yet again, with the IAEA governing board scheduled to meet in Vienna on February 2. Iran’s referral to the UN Security Council is once again hinges on the Russians and Chinese. And India’s official stance was clarified by the foreign secretary, who maintained that India was involved in trying to see if the issue could be solved within the IAEA.

Obviously India does not want a vote, being torn between domestic politics and international policy. While on the one hand, the ideologically hardened Left parties are determined to clobber the government, on the other, India is actually feeling less and less charitable towards Iran.

Domestic opposition will need to be offset by significant international gains, particularly from the US, if India is to weigh in against a traditional friend, said government managers.

Iranian National Security Adviser Ali Larijani’s comments against the Indian nuclear programme have not earned it any brownie points in the Indian establishment. Instead the PM’s statement that India will not allow another nuclear power in the neighbourhood now has more takers here. Indian officials are also fuming over the fact that Tehran is using the LNG deal as a lever against India — it is yet to ratify the agreement, pending the vote in Vienna.

India has also been unhappy over Tehran’s giving 51 per cent controlling stake in the crucial Yadavaran gas fields to China, while India has been offered only 20 per cent stake. The government’s pitch to the Left parties is this: Iran’s recent behaviour is completely unjustified, not merely its breaking the seals in Natanz but also against India.

The Left has also been given a realistic course in Indian diplomatic history — Iran voted with the rest of the NAM against India in the CTBT, voted to permanently extend the NPT, which was seriously against Indian interests, and in 1998, openly criticised the Indian nuclear tests.

India, they said, never treated Iran as an enemy even after that. Officials also said that the pro-China and pro-Pakistan lobby in India and the US were working overtime to link the Iranian and Indian nuclear programmes, which the government finds unacceptable. Nevertheless, said sources involved in the talks, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, in his talks with Nicholas Burns last week, tried to impress upon the Americans the need to take a longer view. The US, India pointed out, has given China years to work on the North Koreans, and a similar opportunity should be given to Tehran.

To the political lobbyists in India, who oppose the Iran vote to appease a Muslim constituency, government managers are stressing the importance of the coming visit of the Saudi king as evidence of India’s outreach with the Muslim world.

Over the past couple of days, the US side tried to impress on India the dangers of a nuclearized Iran. Officials said India didn’t need to be convinced, but domestic political problems, particularly from the government’s Left allies, will dog India’s Iran decision. On Thursday, the European Union-3’s special envoy on Iran, Michael Schaffer, met top officials of the Indian government to impress upon them that a potential referral of Iran to the United Nations Security Council would be more in the nature of a “political statement”.

Schaeffer also ruled out any immediate sanctions on Iran, which was welcomed by India because, said officials, it would make it easier to sell the referral within India. The US is pushing more aggressive diplomacy on Iran. “It should heed the advice of El Baradei in the IAEA and return to negotiations. It should suspend its nuclear activities. It should not engage in centrifuge research, much less enrichment.”—By arrangement with The Times of India