India likely to vote with U.S. on Iran in IAEA
Dated 17/9/2005
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India will vote with the United States, France, Britain and Germany in the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) board of governors if forced to make a choice on referring the question of Iran's nuclear intentions to the United Nations' Security Council.
Highly-placed South Block sources told The Hindu that such a decision to vote with the U.S. in a crunch situation was taken even before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went into a meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush in New York.
At this bilateral meeting Iran is said to have come up for discussion.
Backing off
According to reports from New York, it appears that the U.S. and the European Union "three" are backing off from asking the IAEA's board to refer Iran to the Security Council on September 19 itself.
The board is meeting in Vienna on Monday,
In such a scenario, where the E.U. "three" Foreign Ministers have had diplomatic contacts with the new Iranian leadership in New York, it appears that India will not immediately be called upon to vote one way or another in the IAEA board.
