The timing, once again, was fairly awkward.
On Wednesday morning, the Iranian minister of energy Majid Namjoo met with business leaders at a prominent trade group's office in India's capital.
On Wednesday afternoon, senior fellows from the Brookings Institution, which is based in Washington, D.C., spoke at a battery of sessions on the “India-U.S. Strategic Partnership,†including energy security, at the exact same location.
“The only thing in common is the venue,†Rajiv Tyagi, a spokesman for the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the trade group that held the talks, told India Ink.
The meetings came on the heels of a visit by Timothy F. Geithner, the United States Treasury secretary, who met business executives and Indian leaders, including his counterpart, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, in New Delhi on Tuesday.
This is not the first time that high-profile Americans and Iranians were in town at the same time. In May, India witnessed a similarly odd diplomatic spectacle in the capital, as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared in Delhi to persuade India to stop importing oil from Iran â€" even as an Iranian trade delegation was here trying to drum up more business.
So far, India has been doing a fine balancing act with both allies. The situation in May “actually provided an illuminating window into the realpolitik of Iranian sanctions and of how the United States and India, as well as China, are all trying to achieve their divergent goals,†Jim Yardley wrote in The New York Times.
