If India caves in to US pressure as Trump hopes it will, he will further try to blackmail it into submission, points out Ramesh Menon.
Iran has escaped sanction over the failure of its judo world champion to fight an Israeli at the Athens Olympics.
The powerful United Nations Security Council on Monday unanimously adopted a resolution that endorses the landmark nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers.
Official sources said the two leaders will meet for around four to six hours for the 'agendaless' talks
'Geopolitical stability could remove the crude oil risk premium.'
India's pharmaceutical exports to Iran have been hit owing to depleting rupee reserves in the West Asian country because of India stopping the import of crude oil from it in 2019 following US sanctions. Pharmaceutical exports dropped 71.25 per cent in April-August this year over the same period last year. The data from the Pharmaceutical Exports Promotion Council (Pharmexcil) showed exports to Iran had declined 31.29 per cent in 2022-23 as against the previous financial year.
The US does not expect any "serious response" from Iran to halt its controversial nuclear programme unless the UN Security Council slaps Tehran with additional sanctions, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday.
The United States is in conversation with these 12 countries on ways and means to avoid the American sanctions against them.
Top government officials in New Delhi have started discussions with stakeholders ranging from shipping and container companies to export promotion councils to understand the impact of the Iran-Israel tensions and plan ahead. Inter-ministerial talks are also being lined up amid the crisis situation in West Asia, sources confirmed. While the crude flows are not directly under any threat, elevated oil prices remain a concern, according to officials.
The United States on Tuesday slapped sanctions on 21 Iranian-backed firms, increasing pressure over Tehran's controversial nuclear programme and its alleged support for radical groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.
Lantos said the objective of his legislation is two-fold: "To prevent Iran from securing nuclear arms and the means to produce them. And to ensure that we achieve this goal in a peaceful manner."
This is the first UN sanction on Iran.
The bill now heads to the White House for President Donald Trump's approval.
China on Wednesday reacted sharply to the United States move to exclude it along with India from the list of countries exempted from sanctions for importing crude oil from Iran, saying it is opposed to any unilateral action without United Nations authorisation.
India will back any United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran over the question of its nuclear weapons programme, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the Council on Foreign Relations last week.He hoped, however, that President Barack Obama's ongoing outreach programme to Teheran would result in a viable compromise, and obviate the need for such harsh action.
In an apparent reference to India, the United States on Friday said it wants emerging powers to cooperate with its effort to galvanise international community in imposing sanctions against Iran through United Nations Security Council.
Buyers find ways to cope with shipping restrictions.
Sanctions-hit Iran government has earned millions of United States dollars by hosting the 13th Non-Aligned Movement Summit here which was attended by representatives from over 50 countries. According to Iran's own calculations, it would have earned at least $50 million.
Iran has complained of irregular shipments
The United States' efforts to isolate Iran for its alleged clandestine development of a nuclear weapons capability will figure in the strategic talks between Washington and New Delhi this week, but whether India will be issued a waiver from sanctions against those nations that do not dramatically curtail oil imports from Iran will not be a part of the discussions, a senior US official has indicated.
All the seven companies, including the two Indian companies, Balaji Amines Ltd and Prachi Poly Products Ltd -- both chemical manufacturers -- will be barred from doing business with the US government.
Lauding India's "admirable" record in implementing the United Nations Security Council resolutions, the US has voiced confidence that the country would fully enforce the latest tough sanctions against Iran over its controversial nuclear programme.
The US has extended waivers that exempt nine countries, including India and China, from fully complying with American sanctions targeting Iran's oil exports, citing their significant reduction in oil import from Tehran.
Amid warning by the UN nuclear watchdog that Iran could be hiding multiple secret nuclear sites, the UN and Iranian officials have been secretly engaged in negotiating a deal to allow Tehran keep most of its nuclear programme and end sanctions in return for co-operation with International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, a news report said on Tuesday.
'I am not an aspiration-oriented politician.' 'This is the time to redefine politics.' 'Politics of power is not real politics.'
United States Secretary of States Hillary Clinton on Monday announced Obama administration's decision to exempt India and six other countries from US economic sanctions after they significantly reduced their imports of Iranian oil.
Oil prices rose following Biden's suggestion that United States and Israeli officials were considering a possible Israeli strike on Iranian oil facilities, as reported by the Washington Post.
Banks have raised concerns over the new international trade settlement in rupee, fearing that facilitation of such a mechanism could result in them facing the ire of economic sanctions by the West, people aware of the matter said. Large banks with overseas operations have sought clarity and assurance from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that they will not be targeted with sanctions for facilitating rupee trade with a sanction-hit country such as Russia. The present payment mechanism is a shift from earlier such arrangements, like the one with sanction-hit Iran, which involved banks facilitating settlement of international trade that did not have business in the sanctioned nation.
The reality is that far from being friendless, India is better positioned in the world than at any point post-Cold War, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Speaking at a programme in Kolkata on Tuesday night, he said that in the past, even the US has been appreciative of the fact that the Chabahar port has a larger relevance.
'Their role model is Iran: high control of the citizens by the State.' In Iran it is Islamic control; in India, it will be Hindutva control.'
The crises of the 21st century, 9/11, the economic meltdown, COVID-19, Russia-Iran war and the Hamas-Israel war seem to be never ending. In this situation, Iran might be contemplating a nuclear deterrent to defend itself, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan, the distinguished long-time Rediff contributor who turns 80 on June 17..
'It is typical of China's strategic deception of making virtue out of necessity,' observes Rup Narayan Das.
The government is looking to give Bharat Global Ports a certain amount of domestic exposure after it set up the state-owned consortium to increase India's global maritime heft, officials aware of the development said. The intended domestic exposure is meant to give the consortium experience and build its credentials for international projects.
The US Government Accountability Office, in a recently released report, moved ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, and three others, including Petronet LNG Ltd, out of the list.
Tehran plans to lift exports by 500,000 barrels per day
They have been named for their stake in the Farsi offshore block.
State Bank of India, the nation's largest lender, has stopped processing transactions of Russian entities that have been sanctioned by the West over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, sources said. To effect this, SBI has issued a circular as it fears that any transaction with entities or sectors under sanction will invite sanction on it as well, sources said. No transactions involving entities, banks, ports or vessels appearing on a US, European Union or United Nations sanctions list would be processed irrespective of the currency of the transaction, they said. Payments due to such entities have to be processed by other mechanism rather than through the banking channel, sources added.
The United States Soccer Federation temporarily displayed Iran's national flag on social media without the emblem of the Islamic Republic as a show of solidarity with protesters in Iran ahead of the two teams' World Cup clash on Tuesday.
US central command said that several US personnel are undergoing evaluation for "traumatic brain injuries" and at least one Iraqi service member was wounded in the attack.
