India’s position on the Iranian nuclear effort has been very clearly articulated. India does not favour nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran. India voted for the resolution of the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2005 and 2006 that Iran was in breach of its obligations to that body. Since then many of those issues have been sorted out. Still the Director General, IAEA has a few unresolved questions which he is pursuing. Even the US National Intelligence Estimate has clearly stated that Iran has discontinued its weapons effort in the fall of 2003 and there have been no reports of it being resumed. The US and western European countries appear to be of the view that so long as Iran continues with its enrichment and improves on its capability, it will be in a position to fabricate a weapon if it chooses to, sometime or the other. Therefore, they would prefer Iran to discontinue its enrichment. The Iranian leadership has made it a matter of national pride to continue its enrichment even as it asserts that it has no intention of making nuclear weapons. The Iranian case has problems of credibility since Iran is not going to get a nuclear reactor without the enriched uranium fuel supply tied up by the supplier and Iran is not in a position to design a reactor on its own for the next decade or more.

It is not quite clear whether the Iranians have the North Korean precedent in mind. The North Koreans used a nuclear test and nuclear weapon making effort successfully to deter threats of externally induced forcible regime change to persuade the US to negotiate directly and to obtain much-needed aid. Iran is in a somewhat analogous situation with US threatening regime change and military action. In the case of North Korea, China acted as a successful intermediary. There does not appear to be an intermediary to facilitate an Iran-West dialogue which can lead to the resolution of the issue. In a sense, India is in a position to play that role. China made it clear that it did not favour North Korean nuclear weapons and that did not prevent China playing the mediatory role. In this case, one cannot be confident whether such an offer will be acceptable to Iran and the US. But India does not lose anything in making that offer.

... contd.