The Hindu : India's road diplomacy in Myanmar and Iran

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 21, 2003

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India's road diplomacy in Myanmar and Iran

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI JAN. 20. In his new year musings, the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee,has come up with the buzzword "connectivity'' that highlights the Government's efforts to develop the communication infrastructure. Connectivity has also become an important element in India's regional diplomacy. Organising transportation and other links to neighbouring countries has emerged as a top priority for India's foreign policy.

This week India is hosting two leaders from the region. The Foreign Minister of Myanmar, U Win Aung, is already in town and is meeting the Indian leadership. The President of Iran, Syed Mohammad Khatami, arrives later this week to join the Republic Day celebrations.

In India's engagement with Myanmar and Iran, connectivity is at the top of the economic and political agenda. In both countries, India is supporting infrastructure projects that will provide mutual strategic benefit.

In Myanmar, India has already built a 160 km. road from Moreh on the Manipur border to Kalewa. India has also joined Thailand and Myanmar in a trilateral project that will connect India's North- East to South-East Asia.

Myanmar is not only a bridge between India and South-East Asia, but also a potential route to India's own remote North-East. New Delhi and Yangon are getting ready to implement the Kaladan project that will revive an old historic port at Sittwe on the northern coast of Myanmar and link it by road and river to southern Mizoram.

Indian goods now travel all around Bangladesh through the narrow Siliguri Corridor to reach the North-East. Once the Kaladan project is implemented, they can be shipped to Sittwe and then on to Mizoram. The reluctance of Bangladesh to offer transit facilities to India has made the Kaladan project a strategic one for New Delhi.

Addressing businessmen at the Confederation of Indian Industry here, the Myanmar Foreign Minister, Win Aung, said "Myanmar is ready to share its border with India for the prosperity of the entire region''. In that process, Myanmar hopes to develop its own internal connectivity.

Accelerating the infrastructure development in Myanmar figured prominently in the talks today between Mr. Win Aung and the Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, and the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha.

On the western side New Delhi and Teheran are cooperating in the development of a transport corridor from India to Afghanistan and Central Asia through Iranian territory. With Pakistan denying facilities for overland trade between India and Afghanistan, this corridor has become the key to rapid expansion of economic cooperation between New Delhi and Kabul.

Iran is developing a new port at Chahbahar from where a road will travel along the Pakistan border into Afghanistan where it will link up with the garland road system that connects all the major cities in that nation. India will help Afghanistan build the road link from the border with Iran to its internal road system.

If the Kaladan project allows India to skirt Bangladesh territory to reach its North-East, the Chahbahar corridor gives India the much needed access to Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Both the projects are symbolic of New Delhi's determination to overcome the physical and political barriers that Bangladesh and Pakistan have become to India's aspirations to benefit from regional economic integration.

Ideally a more positive attitude from Bangladesh and Pakistan would have opened the doors for a wider framework of economic cooperation that involves all of India's neighbours to the east and the west.

A rapid development of the transport corridors in Myanmar and Iran should eventually get Bangladesh and Pakistan to act in consonance with their own long-term economic interests.

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