Oil-hungry
Asia stays friendly with Iran
By
Shaun Tandon
AFP
TOKYO
Petroleumworld.com
02 27 06
With the tone rising by the day between Iran and the West over
Tehran's nuclear drive, Asia is staying cool, preserving warm
ties with the Islamic republic whose oil it desperately needs.
Asia feels little direct threat from Iran's populist President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even as his quest for nuclear technology
and bellicose diatribes against Israel earn him pariah status
in the United States and Europe.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki after difficult talks
in Brussels in mid-February headed on a tour of more friendly
Asia. He is due in Japan Monday after visits to Indonesia and
Thailand.
"Our country, which maintains friendly relations with Iran,
will see to it that Iran, which wields influence in the field
of energy, will not be isolated in the international community,"
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said ahead of the
trip.
Japan, usually a steadfast US ally, has defied Washington by maintaining
its lucrative commercial relationship with Iran ever since the
1979 Islamic revolution overthrew the pro-Western shah.
Japan in 2004 inked a two billion-dollar contract to develop Azadegan
in southwestern Iran, considered one of the biggest untapped oil
reserves in the world.
The world's second largest economy imports nearly all of its oil
needs, with 15 percent coming from Iran, and has fought bitterly
with China for access to oil and gas in disputed waters and Siberia.
"As Japan is the only country that has suffered nuclear attack,
it is not acceptable for it to have more nations possessing nuclear
arms," said Osamu Miyata, a Middle East expert at the University
of Shizuoka.
But he added: "If the UN Security Council adopts economic
sanctions against Iran and Japan votes for it while China votes
against, Iran may move to give the development rights for the
oil field to China."
"Japan is unlikely to take policies that get in the way of
US policy on Iran. But if the United Nations moves to sanctions,
it would not benefit Japan's national interests. I believe Japan
would try to convince Iran."
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is set Monday to
deliver a report on the Iranian nuclear program that could lead
the way to Security Council action.
China, the only Asian nation with a veto on the Security Council,
over the weekend dispatched its vice foreign minister to Tehran
for talks on the crisis.
China needs Iran for its breakneck economic growth, with the Islamic
republic providing 13 percent of Chinese oil imports. Beijing
also relates to Tehran in its sensitivity over international criticism
and punitive measures.
"Beijing wants to give Tehran some face-saving period to
reduce tension and avert sanctions," said Jing-dong Yuan,
an expert on Asian nonproliferation at the Monterey Institute
of International Studies in California.
Perhaps the most complicated Asian views on Iran are in India,
which also is defensive about foreign concerns over its nuclear
program.
India has in recent years improved relations with both Iran and
the United States, whose President George W. Bush visits this
week.
Despite the nuclear standoff, New Delhi is looking to secure plans
with Iran to build a multibillion-dollar gas pipeline.
India voted against Iran at the IAEA, infuriating Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh's communist allies, who accused him of kowtowing
to the United States.
But Arundhati Ghosh, India's former ambassador to the UN Conference
on Disarmament, said New Delhi's main motivation for the vote
was that "we didn't want to see another nuclear weapons state
in the region."
The crisis over Iran, which is unique as a Shiite Muslim and Persian
nation, cannot be guaranteed to trigger the same waves of sympathy
in the Islamic world witnessed during other conflicts in the Middle
East.
But the historic hostility between Iran and its Sunni-dominated
Arab neighbors is a reason for India's concern, Ghosh said. India
already has nuclear-armed rival Pakistan on its border.
"If Iran as a Shiite country would get nuclear weapons, it
would not stop, say, the Saudis. They would not manufacture it,
they would buy it," she said. "But it doesn't make us
comfortable at all that this sort of chain effect might start."
Many analysts see Ahmadinejad gambling that the United States
wants to avoid more confrontation in light of the chaos in neighboring
Iraq.
And for some Asians, particularly Muslims, the low image of the
United States will inevitably color their views on the Iranian
crisis, whatever their views about Ahmadinejad's fiery brand of
Shiite Islam.
"The West has never been so strict about Pakistan's or Israel's
or other countries' nuclear programs, but they have a much tougher
approach in the case of Iran," said Kabir Rangebar, an Afghan
member of parliament and political analyst.
"This in itself provides the ground for Asian countries not
to trust the West's claims," Rangebar said.
AFP
02 27 06
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© 2006 AFP. All rights reserved
