New Delhi: India has received a waiver on the United States’ sanctions against Iran’s Chabahar port for a period of six months, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal announced this week. Officials said that the sanctions waiver had come into effect from October 29.
“Yes, I can confirm that we have been granted exemption for a six-month period on the American sanctions that were applicable on Chabahar,” Jaiswal said, in response to a question during the weekly media briefing.
India has been associated with the Chabahar port at least since 2005, when it entered into an agreement with Iran to develop the port. Both sides signed an MoU in 2015 to jointly develop the Shahid Beheshti Port at Chabahar in the hope that it would emerge as a major commercial hub helping India access the markets of Afghanistan, the Central Asian states, and Russia.
The port’s prospects came under a cloud due to Western sanctions against Iran, but in 2018, the first Trump administration gave a waiver to Indian operations at the Chabahar port as it was aimed at helping the development needs of the US-backed Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, led by President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul.
In September, the US Department of State said in a statement that it would revoke the waiver for Indian operations at Chabahar that was offered by Trump in 2018. However, the latest US decision to extend the waiver means that supplies to Afghanistan, especially essential items like food grains and medical products, can still be sent through Chabahar.
