NEW DELHI: Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will be visiting Tehran separately in the next two months, following Union Minister Nitin Gadkari’s recent visit to Iran which stepped up diplomatic ties with the Arab country.
Early May, Road and Transport Minister Gadkari visited Iran and signed an MoU for development of Chabahar Port, which is touted as a gateway to landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Following his steps, Jaishankar will be travelling to Tehran for regular foreign office consultations around mid-June. Several issues, ranging from trade to energy, connectivity and the political situation in West Asia, are bound to figure in discussions, sources said.
In late July, Sushma will travel to Iran to attend the Non-Aligned Movement Foreign Ministerial meeting scheduled for July 23-26.
So far, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not met with the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, though a visit invitation was extended to Modi by the Iran president’s advisor Akbar Torkan at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit in January.
Modi has a jam-packed schedule this year, if a slot is not found this year he will certainly be visiting Iran the following year, sources said.