India on Friday summoned Tehran’s acting ambassador to convey its deep disappointment over supreme Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s “unpalatable” remarks on Kashmir. New Delhi also broke with tradition and abstained from voting on a UNGA resolution critical of the human rights situation in Iran. India has voted against the resolution in the past, and sought to explain its abstention in New York on Thursday by citing the remarks on Kashmir.
India regards the Iranian comments — made thrice in the past five months — as questioning India’s territorial integrity and being insensitive to India’s “core” concerns. Khamenei reportedly said in a message to Haj pilgrims: “Today the major duties of the elite of the Islamic Ummah is to provide help to the Palestinian nation and the besieged people of Gaza, to sympathise and provide assistance to the nations of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Kashmir, to engage in struggle and resistance against the aggressions of the US and the Zionist regime[.]”
While India has tried to engage Iran bilaterally and regionally, New Delhi has made no attempt to deny a link between its abstention and the Iranian remarks on Kashmir.