Washington: India generally cooperated with multilateral efforts to use UN-mandated sanctions to achieve a nuclear agreement with Iran, a bipartisan Congressional report has said as the Trump Administration gears up to muster international support against Tehran.
The independent Congressional Research Service (CRS) said in its latest report said that India began reducing economic relations with Iran in 2010 when India's central bank ceased using a Tehran-based regional body, the Asian Clearing Union, to handle transactions with Iran.
"India implemented UN-mandated sanctions against Iran and generally cooperated with multilateral efforts to use sanctions to achieve a nuclear agreement with Iran," the report which was presented to lawmakers yesterday.
CRS is the independent research wing of the US Congress which prepares periodic report on issues of interest for lawmakers for them to make informed decisions. Its report is not considered as official report of the US Congress.
In its 42-page report CRS notes that during 2010-2016, India's private sector described Iran as a "controversial market" a term used by many international firms to describe markets that entail reputational and financial risks.
In January 2012, Iran agreed to accept India's local currency rupee to settle 45 per cent of its oil sales to India, which Iran mostly used to buy Indian wheat, pharmaceuticals, rice, sugar, soybeans, auto parts and other products.
"India reduced its imports of Iranian oil substantially after 2011 - by the time of the JPA, Iran was only supplying about six per cent of India's oil imports, down from over 16 per cent in 2008. India incurred significant costs to retrofit refineries that were handling Iranian crude. However, since the JCPOA, oil imports apparently have increased to close to 2011 levels," the report said.
Indian firms ended or slowed work on investments in Iranian oil and gas fields work that is likely to resume now that sanctions have been lifted, CRS said, adding that India and Iran are considering using Turkey's Halkbank to transfer to Iran USD 6.5 billion for oil purchased by India during 2012-2016.
In 2015, India and Iran agreed that India would help develop Iran's Chahbahar port that would enable it to trade with Afghanistan unimpeded by Pakistan.
"With sanctions on Iran now lifted, that project no longer entails risk to Indian firms involved. In May 2016, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Iran and signed an agreement to invest USD 500 million to develop the port and related infrastructure," CRS said.
The report said one test of Pakistan's compliance with sanctions was a pipeline project that would carry Iranian gas to Pakistan a project that US officials on several occasions stated would be subject to ISA sanctions.
"Despite that threat, agreement on the USD 7 billion project was finalised on June 12, 2010, and construction was formally inaugurated in a ceremony attended by the Presidents of both countries on March 11, 2013," it said.
In line with an agreed completion date of mid-2014, Iran reportedly completed the pipeline on its side of the border, CRS said.
"China's announcement in April 2015 of a USD 3 billion investment in the project seemed to remove financial hurdles to the line's completion, and the JCPOA removed sanctions impediments to the project," it said.
However, during President Hassan Rouhani's visit to Pakistan in late March 2016, and possibly considering other competing projects, Pakistan still did not commit to complete the line, indicating that Pakistan might be considering alternative gas supply routes, it said.
"In 2009, India dissociated itself from the project, which was initially conceived as bringing Iranian gas to India, over stated concerns about the security of the pipeline, the location at which the gas would be transferred to India, pricing of the gas, and tariffs," CRS said.
US President Donald Trump has described the nuclear deal with Iran as "the worst" agreement ever negotiated, calling the Islamic Republic the number one terrorist state in the world.
