Three days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met US President Barack Obama, India joined 24 other countries at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to vote against Iran on its nuclear programme. India’s censure was based on IAEA director-general Mohammed El Baradei’s report on Implementation of the NPT safeguards agreement in Iran which said all efforts to negotiate with Iran to address the international community’s concern over its ‘clandestine enrichment programme’ has reached a “dead-end.”

This is the third time that India has voted against Iran’s alleged clandestine nuclear weapons programme at the IAEA, the last two occasions being in September 2005 and February 2006. This decision had kicked off a massive political storm in the country. The Left parties, which were offering critical outside support to the UPA government at that time, had come down heavily on the ruling combine and accused it of being arm-twisted by the US into voting against Iran.

The vote had also raised serious concerns within the ruling Congress, which feared that this vote would erode its minority support base. Explaining New Delhi’s third vote on the governing body resolution Vienna, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson, who is travelling with the Prime Minister, said: “Our support for the resolution was based on the key points contained in the Report of the Director General.”

The IAEA has come to the conclusion that Iran was not transparent about its nuclear programmes and concluded that it was pursuing clandestine nuclear weapons programme. In September, Iran confirmed the doubts about its weapons programme when it disclosed the existence of a second uranium enrichment plant in Fordo, not very far from Tehran.

Reports about Iran’s nuclear weapons programme had figured in PM meeting with President Obama and other US leaders earlier this week. Wary of Teheran’s nuclear ambitions, the US has been leaning on New Delhi to use its influence with Iran to contain it.

India, on its part, has been doing a tightrope walk on the sensitive issue. It has consistently opposed Tehran on this issue in multi-lateral for a but continued to engage with Teheran bilaterally. The reasons for this were explained by the PM at his press conference in Washington when he pointed to the ancient civilisational links between the two countries, New Delhi’s dependence on Iran for energy and the presence of five million Indians living in Iran.

Continuing with its balancing act, India was quick to strike a conciliatory note after its censure of Iran at Vienna. It pointed out that this resolution should not be used to renew punitive action or new sanctions against Iran. “India firmly supports keeping the door open for dialogue and avoidance of confrontation,” the foreign office spokesperson underlined.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was in New Delhi to lobby support just before the Prime Minister’s US visit, Singh was very firm that Iran cannot pursue nuclear power ambitions. “As far as Iran's nuclear weapon ambitions are concerned, I have stated it unambiguously on several occasions that we do not support the nuclear weapon ambitions of Iran. Iran is a signatory to the NPT. As such, it has all the rights that got with this membership of the NPT, that is use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,” the Prime Minister had said at an interactive session at the Council for Foreign Relations in Washington.