New Delhi, India \u2014<\/strong> Relations between the United States and India are at a crossroads yet again: this time, over New Delhi\u2019s decade-long investment in Iran\u2019s Chabahar Port.<\/p>\n India\u2019s most ambitious connectivity project in its extended neighbourhood now potentially faces a dead end after a US waiver on sanctions imposed on the project expired\u00a0on Sunday, with no signs of its revival from Washington. The port has been the centrepiece of India\u2019s hopes of building a trade and transit corridor with landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia.<\/p>\n The US has been pressuring Iran\u2019s economy towards collapse through an aggressive sanctions regime aimed at choking off its revenue streams, under its \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d campaign.<\/p>\n The latest is the naval blockade against Iran\u2019s ports, while Tehran claims control over the Strait of Hormuz. India is heavily dependent on the narrow sea route for energy supply, and has been negotiating with Iran to secure passage.<\/p>\n So is India\u2019s Chabahar dream dead now?<\/p>\n In southeastern Iran, perched on the Gulf of Oman, the Chabahar port comprises two terminals: Shahid Kalantari and Shahid Beheshti. India has been involved in the Shahid Beheshti and has invested at least $120m in equipping it.<\/p>\n The port has been hailed as a cornerstone of India\u2019s economic and strategic ambitions over the last two decades, because of its geography.<\/p>\n At the moment, Pakistan \u2014 India\u2019s archrival and nuclear-armed neighbour \u2014 stands between India and landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia. Because of persistent tensions with Pakistan, a land route to Afghanistan and the Central Asian nations is not an option for India.<\/p>\n The Chabahar port allows India to circumvent that problem using a maritime route \u2013 shipping between the Iranian port and Iran\u2019s west coast, and then road and rail transit through Iran to Afghanistan and Central Asia. It is a method India has used repeatedly over the past decade.<\/p>\n There is a second, strategic reason why the port matters to India.<\/p>\n In November 2016, Pakistan inaugurated the China-funded deep-sea port of Gwadar at the mouth of the Gulf of Oman. It is a commercial port, but China\u2019s influence there has meant that India has long feared it could be used to either economically or militarily challenge India through maritime naval operations.<\/p>\n Chabahar offers an escape: it is located about 140km (87 miles) west of Gwadar and is also a deep-water port on the Gulf of Oman. It gives India a strategic presence that mitigates the risks posed by Gwadar by outflanking it.<\/p>\n The Chabahar port is also the southern node of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) \u2014 a 7,200km (4,474-mile) network of railroads, highways and maritime routes that connects Russia and India through Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cChabahar is important for India\u2019s connectivity endeavours in Central Asia, a region not easily accessible for New Delhi,\u201d said Kabir Taneja, a fellow at the India-based Observer Research Foundation think tank.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Iranian port, and the attached INSTC corridor, offers both a core investment with Iran and access to geographies, including Afghanistan, that are looking to diversify their access to coastlines and ports,\u201d Taneja told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n While India and Iran first agreed to develop the port in 2003, the waves of US sanctions on Iran that followed halted any progress. The talks were revived after Washington eased sanctions under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.<\/p>\n In 2016, India\u2019s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Tehran, announced a plan to build and operate the key Chabahar port after meeting then-President Hassan Rouhani, and pledged to invest $500m to develop the strategically important port.<\/p>\n It became minimally operational before US President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018 during his first term, and sanctioned Iran again. But India soon secured a sanctions exemption from Trump to continue developing Chabahar. Afghanistan was at the time ruled by a US-backed government that needed Indian aid shipped through Chabahar.<\/p>\n Since the Taliban came to power in Kabul in 2021, bilateral relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have hit rock bottom, often spilling into fighting along the border.<\/p>\n Despite\u00a0Trump\u2019s \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d policy to choke Iranian revenue streams, the US Treasury Department had initially exempted Chabahar from sanctions in 2018. This was during Trump\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n But in September 2025, the second Trump administration announced that it was revoking all exemptions to Iran-related sanctions, including for Chabahar. India lobbied and got the Chabahar exemption extended until April 26, 2026, after reportedly promising to wind down operations there.<\/p>\n India also paid $120m in promised investments in February this year, raising criticism from opposition parties that accused Modi\u2019s government of buckling under US pressure to abandon a vital strategic project.<\/p>\n \u201cTo now hear that India has unceremoniously retreated from Chabahar at the first hint of pressure from the United States represents a new low in this government\u2019s conduct of foreign policy,\u201d Pawan Khera, a spokesperson for the Indian National Congress, India\u2019s main opposition party, had said then.<\/p>\n \u201cFor how long will the Government of India allow Washington to dictate our national interests?\u201d<\/p>\n After the waiver expired on Sunday, Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesperson for India\u2019s Ministry of External Affairs, told reporters in the national capital that New Delhi is discussing the issue with Tehran and Washington.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, the current conflict is also a complicating factor,\u201d Jaiswal added, referring to the ongoing war.<\/p>\n Last year, a day before the US sanctions were to kick in \u2014 before the waiver was extended \u2014 the New Delhi-appointed officials of India Ports Global Ltd (IPGL), which manages the Chabahar port, resigned, and its website was taken down.<\/p>\n In February this year, the Indian government did not allocate any money for Chabahar in its annual budget, in the first such omission in nearly a decade.<\/p>\n Rajan Kumar, a professor of international studies at New Delhi\u2019s Jawaharlal Nehru University, told Al Jazeera that India has no other option but to wait for the hostilities to end in the Middle East.<\/p>\n \u201cUntil the time conflict ends and Iran remains under heavy sanctions, India does not have much of a choice,\u201d said Kumar.<\/p>\n New Delhi has reportedly been looking to transfer the stake of government-owned IPGL Chabahar Free Zone to an Iranian entity for operations. However, no deal has been reached yet. Such a transfer could allow India to return to its role in managing port operations whenever sanctions are lifted on Iran in the future, analysts say.<\/p>\n \u201cChabahar has really become a losing bet over the last few years. In that sense, it\u2019s really a damaged asset,\u201d said Michael Kugelman, a resident senior fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council.<\/p>\n \u201cThere could be scenarios later when India could pick an opportunity, but with the war in Iran, and the likely possibility of continued tensions with the US, the ties will remain extremely fraught,\u201d he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n So, India would face a difficult sanctions challenge with the Chabahar port if it were to move forward with it, said Kugelman. \u201cIt would be increasingly difficult for it to avoid the risk of the US sanctions.\u201d<\/p>\n At best, Kugelman said, India will play a long game and look to return to the Chabahar port later. At worst, he added, \u201cNew Delhi would conclude that it needs to swallow its losses and back out.\u201d<\/p>\n However, Anwar Alam, a senior fellow at the Policy Perspective Foundation, a think tank in New Delhi, said India\u2019s ultimate decision on Chabahar would hinge on its priorities.<\/p>\n India can manage sanctions and strike a deal with both the US and Iran without necessarily exiting Chabahar, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut if keeping Trump and [Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu in good mood is of greater priority for the Indian government, more so than retaining control of Chabahar, then an exit is the only option,\u201d Alam told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n New Delhi, India \u2014 Relations between the United States and India are at a crossroads yet again: this time, over New Delhi\u2019s decade-long investment in Iran\u2019s Chabahar Port. India\u2019s most ambitious connectivity project in its extended neighbourhood now potentially faces a dead end after a US waiver on sanctions imposed on the project expired\u00a0on Sunday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-explained"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Chabahar](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/e2f41ec3bb1c42098cc182f5697cded9_18.jpeg?w=770&resize=770%2C432&quality=80\")
What\u2019s in Chabahar port for India?<\/h2>\n
![\"Chabahar](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Chabahar-Port-1715830525.png?w=770&resize=770%2C697&quality=80\")
<\/p>\nIs Chabahar port sanctioned now?<\/h2>\n
![\"trump](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/AFP__20250213__36XT4L3__v1__MidRes__UsIndiaPoliticsDiplomacyTrumpModi-1770112675.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80\")
What are India\u2019s options now?<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"