Oman shows the way for India
The visit by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Oman has been his first to an Arab country, while the visit by the Sultan of Oman Qaboos bin Said to Tehran last August was the first visit by an Arab leader after Rouhani’s election and within fifteen days of the latter assuming office as president. The Oman-Iran ties do have a special flavor.
Of course, both are seasoned practitioners of diplomacy and kept up mutual respect and a friendly relationship, which stood in sharp contrast with the Gulf Arab regimes’ roller coaster ride with Iran. In a nutshell, Oman could discern and differentiate the Iranian rhetoric from its innate realism.
Being a plural society, Oman could also elevate itself to a higher level when the Sunni-Shi’ite sectarian passions swirled around it in the region.
All this was not lost on the Barack Obama administration when it turned to Sultan Qaboos to open a secret line for Washington leading to Tehran, which he did in great trust and confidentiality so much so that Riyadh went ballistic when it eventually got to about it after the US-Iranian contacts became public knowledge.
We don’t know at what point the US realized the futility of pressuring Oman to atrophy its ties with Iran and decided instead to co-opt the paradigm, but the ground reality is that Tehran and Muscat are today going about expanding their energy ties as if they never heard of the US’ sanctions against Iran.
Curiously, at a time when a big country and an emerging power like India (pop: 1200 million) gets panicky and scrambles to obey the US diktat to curb its crude oil imports from Iran, tiny Oman (pop: 3 million) is dramatically stepping up its energy cooperation with Iran. There’s food for thought here for India’s low-grade political leadership.
Sultan Qaboos during his visit to Tehran in August signed a 25-year agreement regarding Iranian supply of gas for Oman starting from 2015. During Rouhani’s visit to Muscat this week, a follow-up agreement has been signed whereby Iran will export 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year from its North Pars filed via a deep-water pipeline connecting the two countries.
The construction of the 200-kiolmetre long pipeline connecting Oman’s northern industrial port of Sohar will be completed by 2017 at an estimated cost of $1 billion.
What a splendid coincidence that the US secretary of state John Kerry claims just “made it crystal clear that Iran is not open for business” and his interlocutors accepted that. “They are not cutting deals,” Kerry claimed. He probably had India’s leadership in mind, but certainly he failed to impress Sultan Qaboos.
Notably, Delhi needs to tap into the burgeoning Iran-Oman energy cooperation. Reports suggested that during the recent visit by the Iranian and Omani foreign ministers to India in end-February, Delhi proposed an undersea pipeline from Oman, which can bring Iranian gas to the Indian market.
However, a credibility problem arises. Delhi talks real big about grandiose plans to expand relations with Iran, but then, ultimately all that turns out to be grandstanding and a diplomatic ploy to leverage concessions from the US.
In this case also, Delhi disclosed a futuristic Iran-Oman-India gas pipeline deal, which of course defies Kerry’s guidelines, on the eve of the high-profile US-Indian Energy Dialogue, where India’s big ticket item is to somehow gain access to the US’ upstream shale gas sector and line up LNG supplies from the US.
It’s unclear what understanding has been reached at the US-India Energy Dialogue, but the fate of the Iran-Oman-India gas pipeline project probably hangs by a thread.
Posted in Diplomacy, Politics.
Tagged with India-Iran, Iran-India gas pipeline, US sanctions against Iran, US-Iran.
By M K Bhadrakumar – March 14, 2014
