SCO Summit: India-Iran meeting shelved over scheduling issues

The meeting on Friday between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iran President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the Shanghai Corporation Organisation (SCO) summit here was cancelled due to "scheduling issues," as per sources. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with Iran President Hassan Rouhani in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, cancelled due to scheduling issues. The official banquet got delayed which disrupted the schedule of all the leaders," sources told ANI.

The meeting was supposed to be held against the backdrop of the US sanctions on Iran as well as Tehran's partial withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA). The United States had also recently announced that no fresh sanction waivers will be issued to existing importers of Iranian oil, including India.

The issue had come up during a meeting between former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif during the latter's visit to India last month. After the meeting, Swaraj had said that a decision on buying oil from Iran will be taken after the general elections. In the Joint Declaration issued after the SCO summit, the member-nations called on all participants of the JCPoA or Iran nuclear deal to "strictly fulfil their obligations" for the "effective implementation" of the deal.

"The Member States believe the consistent implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran's nuclear programme to be a priority and, in compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 2231, call on all the participants to strictly fulfil their obligations for the comprehensive and effective implementation of the document," the statement outlined.

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