Jaishankar likely to stopover in Iran enroute to Moscow

<p id="content">External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Moscow during his four-day visit to Russia.

People familiar with developments say Jaishankar is likely to have a stopover in Iran today on his way to a four-day visit to Russia.

This will be the second high-level engagement between India and China in Moscow in the last few days.

Earlier, the Defence Minister held a meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Moscow on September September 4 on the sidelines of the SCO meeting. Singh held a bilateral meeting with his Iranian counterpart during his transit halt in Tehran on his way back to India from Russia.

Chinese mouthpiece Global Times had reported that Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will also plan to meet on September 10.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met General Wei Fenghe, State Councillor and Defence Minister of China on September 4 in Moscow on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting.

The two Ministers had frank and in-depth discussions about the developments in the India-China border areas as well as on India-China relations, as per an official statement.

The Defence Minister categorically conveyed India's position on the developments along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) including in the Galwan valley in the Western Sector of the India-China Border Areas in the last few months.

He emphasized that the actions of the Chinese troops, including amassing of a large number of troops, their aggressive behavior and attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo were in violation of the bilateral agreements and not in keeping with the understandings reached between the Special Representatives of the two sides.

'Raksha Mantri' stated clearly that while the Indian troops had always taken a very responsible approach towards border management, but at the same time there should also be no doubt about our determination to protect India's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Sources told IANS that India and Iran are to explore the revival of the regional approach to diplomacy with respect to Afghanistan following the US-Taliban peace deal. China and Iran share a strong bilateral relationship and have a strategic alliance in the region.

On Saturday, Rajnath Singh had met his Iranian counterpart Brig General Amir Hatami in Tehran en route New Delhi from Moscow.

India's strategic alliance with the US — the arch-rival of both China and Iran — has strained its relationship with Tehran, especially after the Trump administration killed Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Major General Qassem Soleimani and other top military leaders of Iran in an airstrike in Baghdad in January this year.

The Chabahar port in Iran, which India is helping develop to access oil and gas resources in Central Asia, has seen very slow progress since.

The project is important to India as the port aims to offset the competition China poses with its Gwadar port built-in Pakistan's Balochistan province.</p>.