New Delhi, Oct 22
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that a full range of relations between the two nations was reviewed with the Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during the bilateral discussions on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in the Russian city of Kazan.
Had a very good meeting with the President of Iran, Mr. Masoud Pezeshkian. We reviewed the full range of relations between our countries. We also discussed ways to deepen ties in futuristic sectors," PM Modi wrote on X. This was the first bilateral meeting between PM Modi and Pezeshkian, who took over as the President of Iran in July following Ebrahim Raisi's death in a helicopter crash on May 19. Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari represented India in Pezeshkian's swearing-in ceremony, held in Tehran on July 30. The BRICS alliance, an intergovernmental organisation comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, added four new members - Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates - on January 1, 2024. It was also under India's presidency that Iran joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). India-Iran partnership in various sectors, especially connectivity, expanded tremendously during the tenure of Iran's late President Raisi. Both countries fast-tracked infrastructure cooperation, focusing especially on the Chabahar project and the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) - the 7,200 km-long multimodal trade corridor linking Russia with India via the ports of Iran. India and Iran had signed a 10-year contract for the operation of Chabahar Port on May 13, just a few days before Raisi's death. Earlier in the day, immediately after his arrival in Kazan, PM Modi held a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.