AHMADINEJAD VISIT TO INDIA SEEN AS PURE POLITICS

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 001142 SIPDIS NOFORN SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/25/2028 TAGS: PGOV KNNP PARM PINR ECON ENRG EPET IR IN SUBJECT: AHMADINEJAD VISIT TO INDIA SEEN AS PURE POLITICS REF: A. NEW DELHI 01065 (NOTAL) ¶B. SECSTATE 43756 Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Steven J. White for reasons 1.4 (b,d) ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: India's National Security Advisor MK Narayanan publicly confirmed that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will visit India for seven hours on April 29 following a trip to Sri Lanka and prior to arriving in Pakistan. Post conveyed to senior Ministry of External Affairs officials on April 24 USG-suggested talking points to raise with the Iranians. Ahmadinejad will reportedly meet with President Patil and with Prime Minister Singh to discuss, inter alia, the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) natural gas pipeline deal, as well as Iran's efforts to start an indigenous nuclear energy program. Post's contacts view Ahmadinejad's visit as serving purely political interests, for the Indian government's domestic constituency as well as its bilateral relations with Iran and the U.S. END SUMMARY. -- DEMARCHE ON GOI DISCUSSIONS WITH IRAN DELIVERED -- ¶2. (S/NF) Per ref B instructions, on April 24 the Charge and PolCouns conveyed reftel points to MEA Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, Additional Secretary Vivek Katju, Joint Secretary (Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran) TCA Raghavan and SIPDIS Joint Secretary (Americas) Gaitri Kumar. Our interlocutors did not offer a substantive response, neither committing to nor refusing to raise the issues. -- AHMADINEJAD STOPPING IN DELHI BETWEEN COLOMBO AND ISLAMABAD -- ¶3. (C) Confirming publicly what was told to Post privately April 15 (ref A),India's National Security Advisor MK Narayanan announced on April 20 that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will visit India for seven hours on April 29 on his way back from his two-day official visit to Sri Lanka. Narayanan made the comments in the course of an address to the New Delhi-hosted International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Citi India Global Forum. According to Indian media, the visit began as a simple request by Iran for a refueling stopover, but the GOI took the opportunity to convert the stopover into an official visit by conveying that it would be privileged to host President Ahmadinejad. He will reportedly meet with both President Patil and with Prime Minister Singh during his visit. Indian media has speculated that the two sides will discuss, inter alia, the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) natural gas pipeline deal, as well as Iran's efforts to start an indigenous nuclear program. -- PUBLIC DEBATE ON THE INDEPENDENCE OF INDIA'S FOREIGN POLICY -- ¶4. (C) News of Ahmadinejad's visit touched off a public debate among India's opinion makers. Predictably, whether one believed the visit was good for India followed ideological lines, with Muslim and socialist supporters hailing the "independence" the visit demonstrated for India's foreign policy, while many moderate thinkers questioned the wisdom of accepting Ahmadinejad at this time. The prevailing wisdom, however, was exemplified in The Indian Express article entitled "UPA switches on Left indicator," which opined that the Indian government made the conscious decision to invite Ahmadinejad in order to mollify Left and Muslim constituencies, whose support is crucial to the Congress-led government's survival. ¶5. (C) But perhaps as much as the visit itself, Indian media quickly became seized upon the Ministry of External Affairs' (MEA) spokesman's April 22 statement on comments made by Deputy Spokesman Casey, which have widely been interpreted by the Indian public as somehow "standing up" for Indian pride NEW DELHI 00001142 002 OF 003 in response to unwarranted "guidance" on how it should conduct its bilateral relations. Foreign Minister Mukherjee added fuel to the fire by publicly endorsing his spokesman's snippy retort. Since April 22, the debate over the validity of the MEA statement has been as visible as debate over the visit itself. Comments have ranged from the Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPM) arguing that the Deputy Spokesman's comments "vindicated" the Left's apprehensions of the U.S.' "imperialistic ways," to Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy's public statement urging India to bluntly tell Iran to respect international treaties and that "there is no diplomatic gain by publicly rebuking advice from friendly countries on how to deal with Iran, as the U.S. has done." -- PUNDITS SEE VISIT THROUGH POLITICAL PRISM -- ¶6. (C) Post's contacts who follow Iran quickly cast the visit in purely political terms, conveying doubt that Ahmadinejad's welcome to Delhi will grant the Indian government the reward it desires, i.e., gleaning approval from its dubious leftist coalition partners. Most contacts opined that the visit can only benefit Iran, and not the UPA government. Dr. P.R. Kumaraswamy, (Professor at the left-leaning Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi) described this as a win-win for Iran, which will get legitimacy from India "at no cost," and perhaps even make`GhYQ7 that India would vote against Iran in the IAEA then "roll out the red carpet" for Ahmadinejad, adding, "I do not see which way India's Iran policy is going." Raashid Alvi (Member of Parliament, Congress Party) added in a separate conversation, "The visit is really not going to make much difference to Congress Party's electoral support base - except for a couple days' media hype, the visit does not offer much to India." Professor Girijesh Pant (Chairman of JNU's West Asian Studies center) told Emboff that Ahmadinejad's visit underlined the fact that relations between the two countries are now limited to trade and commerce issues only. -- NOTWITHSTANDING TALKS, IPI PIPELINE UNLIKELY TO MATERIALIZE -- ¶7. (SBU) India's Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Murli Deora is visiting Islamabad April 23 - 25 and signed a four-party agreement on the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) natural gas pipeline on April 24. Minister Deora will reportedly meet April 25 with Pakistan's new petroleum Minister to discuss the controversial bilateral issues of transit fees and transportation fees for the Pakistan leg of the proposed 2,700-kilometer, USD 7.5 billion IPI natural gas pipeline. This meeting would be the first high-level bilateral discussion of the IPI deal since June 2007. (COMMENT: Post remains skeptical of any substantial progress on the IPI deal, either from the bilateral meeting in Pakistan or from the Ahmadinejad visit, even if optimistic statements will be released for domestic political consumption. END COMMENT) -- COMMENT: POLITICAL COVER, OR HAS THE CONGRESS PARTY LOST ITS MIND? -- ¶8. (C) Since news broke of Ahmadinejad's pending arrival, in Delhi circles this visit has been as much about India's relations with the United States as with Iran. Whether this visit will provide the government with enough political cover - in terms of proving the "independence" of India's foreign policy to opposition forces - to move forward with tough decisions on the U.S.-India relationship, including the civil-nuclear deal, or is merely continued "business as usual" for India on Iran, will be seen in the weeks after Ahmadinejad departs Delhi. For the past two years, GOI contacts have eagerly pointed out to us that they had rebuked NEW DELHI 00001142 003 OF 003 Tehran's invitations and requests for a Presidential visit, but now obviously they have calculated that such a visit is in India's interests. Whether Congress can pull off pleasing India, Tehran and Washington at the same time is about to be put to the test. WHITE