India’s Condolences for Ayatollah Cleared Way for Deal on Hormuz

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(Bloomberg) — Five days after the US and Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader, the top bureaucrat in India’s Foreign Ministry made his way to the Islamic Republic’s embassy on a tree-lined street in New Delhi. 

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Sitting next to a large photo of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on March 5, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri signed a condolence book and expressed sympathies “on behalf of the people and the Government of India.” On the same day, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar held a phone call with his Iranian counterpart, their second since hostilities began.

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Those conversations helped accelerate talks that culminated more than a week later in Iran giving permission for two India-flagged LPG tankers to exit the strait safely. It was a diplomatic coup for Modi’s government since very few ships, most of them linked to China and Iran, have been able to move through the waterway since the war began.

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Up until those March 5 meetings, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government had been relatively silent on the attacks, seeking to walk a fine line between Iran, a longstanding friend, and both the US and Israel, important economic and defense partners. Yet the need to reach out to Iran had become necessary, according to officials in New Delhi familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. 

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Iran’s virtual shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz has caused severe cooking gas shortages for millions of Indian families and small businesses, threatening economic stability in the country. About 90% of India’s liquefied petroleum gas imports come through the strait. 

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The opening for the breakthrough came a day earlier, when an Iranian naval ship with a crew of 183 docked at the western port of Kochi. That same day, a US submarine had torpedoed another Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka, leaving more than 80 dead and dozens missing. A third Iranian vessel was allowed to dock at a port in Sri Lanka.

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The Iranians took India’s gesture as a positive sign of the relationship between the two sides, the officials said. The naval ship could have otherwise been a possible target for the US, they said. A few days later, India allowed most of the Iranian sailors to return home on a chartered plane arranged by Iran.

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No ‘Blanket Arrangement’

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“There are multiple partners who are of varying degrees of importance for India — I do believe Indian diplomacy has managed to balance various equities,” said Ashok Malik, a former Indian Foreign Ministry official who is now a partner at The Asia Group. “We have also managed to address our own energy security needs for our own people. You have to give Indian diplomacy and foreign policy credit for that.”

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Jaishankar, who has held at least four conversations with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi since the start of hostilities, has been the primary person leading negotiations on the Indian side, according to officials familiar with the matter. Jaishankar has said there’s no “blanket arrangement” with Tehran for the passage of Indian-flagged vessels, and the officials said separately that negotiations are taking place tanker by tanker.