Note: During 15-17 February 2018, Hassan Rouhani, the President of the Islamic Republic of India, visited India. His visit began in the southern city of Hyderabad where he offered Friday noon prayers in the historic Makkah Masjid. The visit comes nearly two years after the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Iran in May 2016. In January 2003, India hosted President Mohammed Khatami as the Chief Guest of the Republic Day celebrations while President Mohammed Ahmadinejad made a brief stopover in India in April 2008 on his way home from Sri Lanka. The national and international editorials on President Rouhani’s visit are reproduced here. Editor, MEI@ND.

The Hindu, Chennai, Editorial, 20 February 2018

Old Friends: on India- Iran bilateral ties

India must maintain its steady course of strengthening ties with Iran. In purely bilateral terms Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to India was pitch perfect for in context and optics. After his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India and Iran signed agreements and memorandums of understanding on wide variety of issues. For the full text

Hindustan Times, New Delhi, Opinion, 21 February 2018

Rouhani’s visit reflects the many dimensions to India- Iran Relations

Hassan Rouhani’s India visit has given the political impulse to the ties. Now the challenge will be to deliver on the promises made. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s three-day visit to India from February 15 took place after a gap of 15 years — since President Mohammad Khatami’s visit in 2003. Though President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came in 2008, this was a transit visit. For the full text

The HANS India, Hyderabad, Editorial, 21 February 2018

A win-win visit

Iran and India signed nine agreements, including one on the leasing part of the Iranian port of Chabahar to an Indian company, after bilateral talks between the Indian Prime Minister and the Iranian President in New Delhi the other day. The visit itself came at a sensitive time for Iran and presented New Delhi with an opportunity. For the full text

The Times of India, Mumbai, Editorial, 19 February 2018

Rouhani’s look east: New Delhi must follow up his visit by increasing linkages with Iran

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s three-day visit to India last week exemplified growing ties between New Delhi and Tehran, at a time when both countries need each other. Iran is beset by the US picking up again on its blood feud with the country; Israel and Gulf states too are arrayed against it. Both India and Iran support a stable government in Afghanistan; Iran is a key component of India’s western flank strategy, which can offer to it energy, connectivity, a market for its goods and an investment opportunity. For the full text

The Tribune, Chandigarh, Editorial, 16 February 2018

Rouhani comes to India

The temptation of mutual antipathy. An Iranian President’s overseas visit is always global news. Hassan Rouhani’s visit to India too should make a worldwide splash, for Iran is trying to break-free from a determined US-Saudi squeeze to end its intervention in the region’s hotspots on the side of their adversaries in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Iran’s US-Saudi promoted difficulties, however, are neither recent nor do they make Tehran an easy candidate for extracting concessions. For the full text

The Economic Times, Mumbai, Editorial, 18 February 2018

Why good relations with Tehran matter

It is welcome that the president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, made a state visit to India, barely a month after Iran’s adversary, Israel, sent its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on a state visit to India. India has good relations with Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and other Arab nations. For the full text

The Free Press Journal, Mumbai, Editorial, 20 February 2018

A fruitful visit

The visit of Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani last week yet again underlines the basic truth in diplomacy. Bilateral relations between nations need not be hostage to the strained ties either of them might have with a third country with which the other maintains good relations. The fact that India has friendly ties with Saudi Arabia and a number of other Sunni nations in West Asia does not impinge on the quality of its relationship with Iran, the Shia-majority country ranged against the Saudis and others in its bloc. For the full text

Daily Pakistan Global, Lahore, Editorial (opinion), 1 March 2018

Iran-India Strategic Syndicate

Senators Raza Rabbani and Farhatullah Babar either don’t read the newspapers or selectively attend to them. Hence, incoherent and bizarre activism echoes in the ‘supreme’ parliament. Blinded by ideological taints or political expediency, the country’s politicians have perfected the art of justifying their suicidal blunders. For the full text

The Iran Project, Tehran, Editorial (opinion), 18 February 2018

Iran- India Relations: A history of Peaceful Collaboration

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is on a visit to India this week, repaying a trip by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Tehran in 2016. Before leaving Tehran, Rouhani said relations between the two nations were historical and deep-rooted, and in his first day in India — in the city of Hyderabad — on Thursday he went further to emphasize warm relations between Tehran and New Delhi, saying, “Iran and India enjoy historic and cultural relations that are beyond mere political and economic relations,” hinting at an approach rooted in idealism in international relations, especially with India, rather than one rooted in mere realism. For the full text

The Diplomat, Tokyo, Editorial (opinion), 17 February 2018

India- Iran Relations: More Challenges than Opportunities

The visit by Iran’s president to New Delhi has come at a tricky time in the bilateral relationship. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has this week been repaying the trip Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to Tehran in 2016 with a visit to India. Rouhani’s arrival in New Delhi represented a continuation of India’s robust outreach to West Asia, and interestingly comes on the heels of the Modi government’s much-celebrated engagement with one of Iran’s biggest enemies in the region, Israel. For the full text

The Greater Kashmir, Srinagar, Editorial (opinion), 19 February 2018

Iran-India Chapter

Need to put the Iranian nuclear programme in perspective. President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to New Delhi is a confirmation of India’s balanced approach to the West Asian region. It comes amidst a flurry of visits by Indian leaders to the region, and key West Asian players like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and now the Iranian president to New Delhi. For the full text

New Delhi Times, New Delhi, Editorial, 23 February 2018

India and Iran’s Strategic convergence on Chabahar

Recently, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, accompanied by a 21-member delegation of ministers and businessmen, paid a 3-day visit to India. This was the first such visit paid by an Iranian President in ten years. On February 17, India and Iran signed nine agreements on trade, energy and connectivity like Maritime Agreement on Chabahar Port and Document on Shahid Behesti port, Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements (DTAA), Exemption of Visa requirements for diplomatic passport holders, Ratification of Extradition Treaty, Co-operation on Medicine and Agriculture, Establishment on Trade, Health, and Postal Co-operation. For the full text

Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad, Editorial (opinion), 19 February 2018

Closer Iran links parts of India wider vision

Tehran is helped in breaking out of diplomatic isolation caused by the US Sanctions. The recent visit of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to India led to the two countries signing nine agreements — among them one to further facilitate India’s partnership in expanding the present and future operations at the strategically-located Chabahar port in southern Iran. For the full text

Telangana Today, Hyderabad, Editorial, 20 February 2018

Indo-Iranian Bonhomie

India is a crucial component of India’s geopolitical strategy on the western plank as it offers access to its vast energy resources and huge investment opportunity. The bonhomie that marked the three-day visit of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to India reflects a growing convergence of interests between the two countries bound by ancient cultural ties. For the full text

The Indian Express, Mumbai, Editorial, 19 February 2018

The golden gateway

Economic and strategic potential of Iran’s Chabahar will unfold. But Delhi must also prepare for difficulties ahead. With Pakistan blocking India’s overland access to landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia, Iran was Delhi’s natural alternative. The agreement to lease a part of Iran’s Chabahar port, signed during the visit of President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Delhi last week, marks an important advance in India’s efforts to expand connectivity with the neighbourhood and beyond. For the full text

The Diplomat, Tokyo, Editorial (opinion), 17 February 2018

Iran’s Rouhani Comes to India: What to Expect

The Iranian president will come to New Delhi with an economic agenda on his mind. In a remarkable display of New Delhi’s ability to balance competing interests in the Middle East, India will be hosting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani this week. For the full text

As part of its editorial policy, the MEI@ND standardizes spelling and date formats to make the text uniformly accessible and stylistically consistent. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views/positions of the MEI@ND. Editor, MEI@ND: P R Kumaraswamy