M Hasan
masoodulhasan@urbanmirror.in
New Delhi, May 10: The decision of the US President Donald Trump to pull out of Iran Nuclear deal signed in 2015 is going to have wider political and economic ramifications all over the world, especially in trouble-torn Middle East in the near future. Even though other signatories of the deal-France, German and Britain have announced to stick to Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the US plan for resuming sanctions against Teheran would certainly have adverse impact not only on Iran but also adversely influence other oil importing countries.
The Middle East countries are thus again in for long trouble with some Muslim forces in league with Israel are openly arrayed against Iranian regime. There is no doubt that decision of Donald Trump is more influenced by support to these regional anti-Iran forces than his claim that Clerical regime was still pursuing its Atomic weapons aspiration. The scrapping of Barack Obama-architectured nuclear deal was one of the electoral promises of Trump. Therefore in order to push Trump administration to pull out of the deal the Israeli government had been regularly dishing out concocted information about production of enriched uranium at Iranian nuclear sites. Saudi Arab too had mounted pressure on US in this connection. However there is no doubt that with this move the credibility of the US in world’s eyes has nosedived. France, German and Britain have already taken strong exception to the decision. In fact Trump has not only targeted the Iran by his jaundiced views on the deal, but has thrown billions of dollars of European investments in disarray in Iran. Russia and China have also expressed disappointment over the US move.
For India the development is not a good news. With India becoming major importer of Iranian oil, the announcement of fresh US sanction would adversely impact the economy. Oil prices, already going up, could further rise, affecting the domestic inflation. India’s plan to construct a trade and transit corridor around Iran’s Chabahar port to access Afghanistan and central Asian countries too could hit by potential US sanction. For this reason India has very cautiously responded to the US decision. In a statement Foreign Ministry said “India has always maintained that the Iranian Nuclear Issue should be resolved peacefully through dialogue and diplomacy by respecting Iran’s right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy as also the international community’s strong interest in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme. All parties should engage constructively to address and resolve issues that have arisen with respect to the JCPOA”.
