PM Modi's meeting with Iranian Prez cancelled due to scheduling issues

June 14, 2019 21:56

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday could not hold a bilateral meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the SCO summit here due to scheduling issues, official sources said.

According to a schedule put out by the External Affairs Ministry, Modi was to meet Rouhani at 3:35 PM (local time). As banquet for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) leaders got extended, the two leaders could not meet, sources said.

Modi arrived Bishkek onThursday on a two-day visit to attend the annual summit of the SCO. He held bilateral meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

It was expected that Modi and Rouhani would discuss a range of issues including the US sanctions on import of Iranian oil and implementation of the Chabahar port project.

The meeting was keenly awaited as it was to take place amid escalating face-off between Iran and the United States on Tehran's nuclear programme.

The six-month-long exemptions from US sanctions to India and seven other countries to buy oil from Iran expired on May 2 as Washington did not extend it.

Early last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif visited India in the wake of the US decision to not continue the exemptions to India and other countries. -- PTI

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