Iran's supreme leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has raked up the Kashmir issue again repeating his
oft-quoted line of "Kashmir being an oppressed nation". After leading
the Eid al-Fitr prayers in Tehran, Khamenei exhorted the Muslim world to openly
support "Yemen, Bahrain and Kashmir". Khamenei called on the Islamic
community to unite against the "injuries being inflicted on the world of
Islam."
Khamenei.ir @khamenei_ir
Muslim world should openly
support people of #Bahrain, #Kashmir, #Yemen, etc and repudiate oppressors&
tyrants who attacked ppl in #Ramadan.
10:37 AM - 26 Jun 2017
https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/879204522530418689
According to a write-up posted
on http://english.khamenei.ir, Khamenei urged Muslims to "support oppressed
nations". While speaking about Yemen, another front in the battle between
Iran and Saudi Arabia to establish regional supremacy, he said that "the World
of Islam should explicitly support the people of Yemen" and likened the
situation there with Bahrain and Kashmir saying, "our people can back this
great movement within the World of Islam. Just as we explicitly express our
position against enemies and adversaries, the world of Islam--especially the
elites in it--should follow this path and take a position towards seeking to
please God, absolutely, even if it leads to dissatisfaction of the arrogant
front."
This is not the first time
that Khamenei has raised the Kashmir bogey. India had summoned the Iranian Ambassador
in 2010 to issue demarche after Khamenei's repeated calls to the Muslim
community to support the so-called struggle in Kashmir. Though India was a
friendly nation to Iran and it abstained from voting on a UN Security Council
resolution on human rights violations in Iran, Khamenei went on to declare
Kashmir a nation and India a Zionist regime.
His official website mentions
at least three other instance, going as far back as 1990, when Khamenei tried
to barge-in in an issue that India considers strictly bilateral, between India
and Pakistan, with a non-compromising stand that Kashmir is an integral part of
India.
WHY KHAMENEI MAY HAVE CHOSEN THIS
TIME
It is not coincidental that
Khamenei has chosen a time to test the Indian patience again when Indian prime
minister Narendra Modi is in the United States and the significance Donald
Trump attaches to the visit can be seen from the fact that Modi is the first
world leader for whom Trump is hosting a working dinner.
On one side, he will be
reminding India of steering clear of any anti-Iran designs of Trump. Khamenei's
anti-India rhetoric again, at this time, when Kashmir is going through a
prolonged phase of insurgency, may be aimed at dissuading India and Modi from
being party to any anti-Iran front that Trump may discuss with the Indian prime
minister, even if, historically, India has been non-partisan on taking sides as
we saw in case of India abstaining from UN voting against Iran.
At the same time, he will
convey the message to the world and to Iran's trading partners that who is the
real boss in Iran, especially after the defeat of the candidate he was
supporting in the recently held elections.
It is said that Iran's public
wants to do away with decades of religious fundamentalism and global sanctions
and its most visible example was seen in the re-election of its moderate
president Hassan Rouhani against the wishes of Ayatollah Khamenei who was seen
supporting Rouhani's hardliner rival Ebrahim Raisi.
US President Donald Trump has
been a harsh critic of Iran. During campaign phase, he would often criticize his
predecessor Barack Obama for brokering the nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 that
eased sanctions on Iran. It was seen as a big win for moderate Rouhani, domestically
and internationally, and his re-election has a put of seal of approval on it.
Last month, during his first
major foreign tour to a group of Gulf nations, Trump slammed Iran for being a
terror exporter and appealed to the leaders of the 50 Muslims majority
countries present there to isolate Iran as long as it didn't "committed to
becoming a partner of peace.” Though Trump extended the relief given to Iran
from sanctions in May, it may be more a procedural extension before Trump takes
a harsh decision like he has done by withdrawing many relaxations given to Cuba
by Barack Obama in another landmark deal that restored diplomatic ties between
the US and Cuba after almost six decades.
Iran has emerged as India's third
largest oil supplier and Iran's second biggest buyer after sanctions were eased
in 2015. Last year, PM Modi was in Tehran and India-Iran inked a deal to
develop the strategic Chabahar port in response to China developing Gwadar port
in Pakistan's Balochistan province and bilateral trade ties between both
countries are rapidly expanding.
©SantoshChaubey