Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad greets PM Manmohan Singh in Tehran on Wednesday. — AFP

In his dealings with Iran’s top leaders, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh must have felt like the ancient Greeks who had to navigate between the mythical sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis. As he sat down with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei for a rare one-on-one meeting, the Prime Minister had to strike the right balance between keeping the Iranians, who have their back to the international wall, in good humour and at the same time reassuring the growling Americans that India had not gone soft on Tehran’s nuclear excesses.

The ground for the interaction between Manmohan Singh and Khamenei was set by an hour-long bilateral meeting that the Indian Prime Minister had with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad late this evening on the sidelines of the 16th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Faced with international isolation over its nuclear ambitions, Iran is keen to deepen its economic engagement with India, including increasing sale of oil to Delhi.

So, in their one-hour meeting, both Manmohan Singh and Ahmadinejad went over some of the areas where the two countries could enhance cooperation on the economic and trade front. Manmohan Singh stressed the need to improve the balance of trade between the two countries that is now heavily skewed in Iran’s favour because of India’s oil imports.

Of the total annual trade of $15 billion, India’s exports account hardly for $2.5 billion. Manmohan Singh wanted an improvement in that figure and mentioned that India wanted resumption of wheat exports to Iran that had been stalled over objections of possible fungal disease.

Apart from bilateral cooperation, the two leaders discussed the need for trilateral cooperation with countries having mutual interests. The recent agreement to develop Chabahar as a strategic port to facilitate trade between Iran, Afghanistan and India was cited as an example. Located close to the Pakistan border, Chabahar is the shortest warm water port that would connect India to Afghanistan via Iran and thence on to Central Asia.

Currently, Pakistan allows Afghanistan to send goods via the land route through the Wagah border, but does not allow India to export goods through the same route. With India investing heavily on Afghanistan’s infrastructure, especially roads connecting it to Iran, Chabahar has become a vital link for Indian business to access the landlocked country.

The two leaders discussed the internal situation in Afghanistan and their concerns about the future of the troubled country, especially the menacing presence of the Taliban. The two countries agreed to consult each other regularly on the economic development and reconstruction of Afghanistan.

The sensitive nuclear issue also came up for discussion with Manmohan Singh expressing keenness that the issue be sorted out through discussion supporting the on-going negotiations between the P5 countries and Germany with Iran on the matter. India has resisted requests to play any sort of mediation role. Its stand with Iran is that while it believes that it has the right to develop its nuclear energy, it must meet the international obligations that it voluntary signed on and not deviate from it.

Experts have noticed a perceptible softening on Iran’s stand on the nuclear issue. Iran has ensured that during NAM it has made no provocative statements on the subject. Instead, the tone is reconciliatory. The streets are festooned with banners that proclaim, “Nuclear energy for all but nuclear weapons for none.” Iran has apparently expressed its desire to observe the fatwa of Khamenei that “nuclear weapons are un-Islamic” if the Western powers are able to enforce what it terms “regional disarmament”.

Essentially, it means that Israel has to give up its nuclear weapons for Iran to stop its own nuclear quest. Others see the recent softening of Iran’s stance as tactical – it is waiting to see the outcome of the US presidential election.

Yet, it was Manmohan’s meeting with Iran’s Spiritual Leader, soon after his meeting with the Iranian President, which assumed the most significance. The Iranian constitution bestows extraordinary powers on the Supreme Leader. So, apart from being the temporal head, Khamenei calls the shots on all vital matters, including having control over the country’s army and intelligence agencies.

In the 40-minute meeting between Khamenei and Manmohan Singh, the Iranian leader turned nostalgic, citing his admiration for Gandhi and Nehru and how the late Indian Prime Minister played a major role in founding NAM. He talked of the two countries’ cultural and religious ties and lauded India for its progress on the economic front.

After the meeting, Ahmadinejad hosted a dinner for the Indian Prime Minister, signalling just how important the two key Iranian leaders regarded Manmohan Singh’s visit and their gratefulness for India’s presence when their country needed it most. The Indian Prime Minister had reason to be satisfied by the encounters. He had pleased his Iranian hosts without offending the countries that didn’t want the economic noose around Tehran loosened.