Hamid Ansari, the United Progressive Alliance-Left parties' candidate for the post of vice president, says India acted with great haste when it voted against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting in September 2005.

In an interview with Outlook magazine, Ansari said, "There are four strong and objective reasons for India to maintain good relations with Iran. Iran is an important neighbouring country on the other side of Pakistan. Second, Iran is a major source of energy. It is the only route to have access to Central Asia and Afghanistan. It is a very important Gulf nation. We cannot afford to undermine our relations with Iran," and added that we have rectified the position to some extent.

A severe critic of America's military action in Iraq, Ansari says, "Time has validated my position. Today it is clear that the US invasion of Iraq was an ill thought out judgement.

"Even at the time when the case against Iraq was being built up I had no doubt that there was no evidence. There were no WMDs. I would not like to believe that outright lies were told. But I would describe the entire Iraq exercise as a misreading of what the US then perceived to be in its strategic interest. The drop in George Bush's [Images] popularity in the US reveals that Americans realise they were misled. At every stage the Iraq war was a litany of misleading judgements and statements. It was also in violation of the United Nations Charter and international law. It brought great misery and anarchy to Iraq. I wonder whether the US action will ever be judged as a crime against the Iraqi people."

He also clarified that he was not anti-US. "In today's world no one can be anti the world's most powerful country."

During the course of the interview Ansari also praised former prime minister A B Vajpayee for not yielding to pressure to send Indian troops to Iraq. "We have to give the credit to Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He was under pressure from individuals in his administration besides the US. But he read the pulse of the public and realised it would be a monumental folly."

Asked why the Left chose him as the vice presidential candidate, Ansari said, "I don't know the politics behind my candidature. But Prakash Karat was the first to speak to me after which Sonia Gandhi and the PM got in touch."

The vice-presidential elections are scheduled for August 10, with counting of votes slated for the same evening. Apart from Ansari, there are two other candidates. Najma Heptullah for the National Democratic Alliance and Masood Rashid for the United National Progressive Alliance popularly known as the Third Front.