Key Landmarks in India’s West Asia Policy

West Asia sits at the centre of some of the world’s most enduring conflicts, yet India has managed to maintain working relationships with nearly every major player in the region. This is no small feat. India buys oil from Iran while deepening defence ties with Israel. It champions the Palestinian cause while building strategic partnerships with the Gulf monarchies. Understanding how this balancing act developed requires tracing the major turning points in India’s engagement with the region, from the early years of solidarity politics to today’s intricate web of energy deals, port projects, and minilateral groupings.

The foundations of solidarity
The 1992 turning point
Why the shift happened
Balancing Israel and Palestine in practice
The Gulf pivot and the Look West policy
Defence cooperation with the Gulf
Iran and the Chabahar port
Managing American sanctions
New minilateral groupings
The I2U2 group
The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor
The thread running through it all

The foundations of solidarity

For most of the period after independence, India identified closely with the Palestinian struggle, driven by anti-colonial solidarity with Arab states and a commitment to the Non-Aligned Movement. This was not merely sentiment. It reflected a worldview rooted in decolonisation, self-determination, and the idea that newly independent nations should support one another against imperial powers.

India’s commitment to Palestine took concrete diplomatic form early. India was among the first nations to recognise Palestine as a state and even issued a commemorative stamp honouring the Palestinian people in 1981. India formally recognised the State of Palestine in 1988 and has consistently advocated for a two-state solution as the basis for lasting peace.

This early phase was shaped by domestic and strategic considerations alike. A large population dependent on West Asian oil, millions of citizens working in the Gulf, and the goal of leadership among developing nations all pushed New Delhi towards a pro-Arab tilt. Relations with Israel remained minimal and largely informal during these decades.

The 1992 turning point

The most significant landmark in the entire story is the year 1992. As India liberalised its economy and the Cold War ended, it also expanded its diplomatic horizons. India established full diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992 under Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao.

This decision did not reverse India’s stand on Palestine. Instead, it began a process scholars now call de-hyphenation. The core idea is simple: India would treat its relationship with Israel and its relationship with Palestine as separate tracks, each judged on its own merits rather than as a trade-off. A government official later summarised this approach plainly, noting that diplomacy is not a zero-sum game and that both Palestine and Israel are important relations for India.

Why the shift happened

Several factors converged. The end of the Cold War removed old ideological constraints. India needed advanced defence technology and agricultural expertise, both of which Israel could supply. Economic liberalisation meant India was looking outward for trade and investment. Over the following decades, the India-Israel partnership grew rapidly in defence, intelligence sharing, agriculture, and technology, eventually becoming one of New Delhi’s most substantial bilateral relationships.

Balancing Israel and Palestine in practice

The de-hyphenation policy is tested every time conflict flares in the region. India’s response has been a carefully calibrated balancing act. During recent rounds of the Israel-Gaza conflict, India’s posture has rested on strategic autonomy, with abstention at the United Nations helping it avoid alienating Israel while not outright opposing a ceasefire or abandoning the Palestinian issue.

High-level visits illustrate the same dual-track logic. In 2018, Narendra Modi became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Palestine, travelling to Ramallah as part of a wider regional tour. India has also continued its development assistance, funding infrastructure and capacity-building projects in Palestinian territories. At the same time, defence and technology cooperation with Israel has expanded year on year. The message is consistent: engagement with one does not come at the expense of the other.

The Gulf pivot and the Look West policy

While the Israel-Palestine question attracts most attention, the deepening of ties with the Gulf monarchies is arguably the more consequential development of recent years. The Gulf Cooperation Council states are central to India’s energy security, host a vast Indian workforce, and send home enormous remittances.

The numbers explain the priority. The UAE and Saudi Arabia rank among India’s top trading partners, with bilateral trade reaching tens of billions of dollars and India negotiating a Free Trade Agreement with the GCC to expand commerce further. Saudi Arabia is a major supplier of energy, a buyer of Indian goods, and a key source of remittances. Modi’s repeated visits to the kingdom, including a 2025 trip, focused on energy and food security alongside trade connectivity, building on Saudi Arabia’s 2023 pledge to invest 100 billion dollars in India.

This intensified engagement is sometimes described as India’s Look West policy, a deliberate effort to treat the region not merely as a source of oil and jobs but as a zone of strategic partnership.

Defence cooperation with the Gulf

Defence ties, once almost nonexistent, are now a notable feature of these relationships. The Indian Navy established bilateral exercises with the UAE in 2018, Qatar in 2019, and Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in 2021, while the Indian Army held its first exercises with the UAE and Saudi Arabia in 2024. The UAE has emerged as India’s key regional defence partner, being among the few countries with which India conducts exercises across all three services.

Iran and the Chabahar port

India’s relationship with Iran shows how strategic interest can override external pressure. The centrepiece of this relationship is the Chabahar port, located on Iran’s Makran coast on the Gulf of Oman. Chabahar matters because it gives India a way to reach Afghanistan and the markets of Central Asia without passing through Pakistan.

The project has a long history of delays. India signed a memorandum of understanding in 2015 and an initial contract in 2016 during Modi’s visit to Iran, but progress was slow. The decisive landmark came on 13 May 2024, when India and Iran signed a 10-year agreement to develop the strategically significant Chabahar port, critical to India’s economic and geopolitical strategy for Central Asia and beyond.

Under this deal, India Port Global Limited will develop and operate the Shahid Beheshti terminal for 10 years, marking India’s first attempt at managing a seaport in another country. The strategic logic is twofold. Chabahar serves as a counterweight to China’s development of the Gwadar port in Pakistan, and it forms a key node in the International North-South Transport Corridor linking the Indian Ocean to Russia and Europe via Iran.

Managing American sanctions

The Iran relationship is complicated by US sanctions. When the 2024 deal was signed, Washington promptly reminded the world that its sanctions on Iran remained in force. India has handled this tension by arguing that the port benefits the entire region. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar pushed back on narrow interpretations, stressing that people should not take a narrow view of the project and that the port operation would benefit the entire region. This careful diplomacy reflects India’s broader pattern of pursuing its interests while avoiding open confrontation with major powers.

New minilateral groupings

The most recent landmark in India’s West Asia policy is its participation in new multi-country frameworks that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Chief among these is the I2U2 grouping.

The I2U2 group

The I2U2, sometimes called the West Asian Quad, brings together India, Israel, the UAE, and the United States. It was established in October 2021, and its first joint statement in July 2022 outlined cooperation on water, energy, transportation, space, health, and food security. The very existence of this group signals how far India has travelled. It now sits at the same table as Israel and an Arab state, focusing on practical economic cooperation rather than ideological alignment.

The grouping reflects a broader convergence. India has rejected the old notion that it cannot be visibly friendly with Israel, transforming once-uneasy relations with Saudi Arabia and the UAE into solid strategic partnerships.

The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor

Announced in 2023, the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, or IMEC, is an ambitious infrastructure plan. The corridor would pass through India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and Europe, linking them through railways, ports, and highways to facilitate trade. For India, IMEC offers a route to escape strategic encirclement by China and to position itself as a leader among developing nations. For the Gulf states, it cements their role as a bridge between East and West.

Both I2U2 and IMEC face a real obstacle: regional instability. The Israel-Hamas war and broader tensions have slowed momentum on these projects, showing that India’s careful balancing act remains vulnerable to events beyond its control.

The thread running through it all

Looking across these landmarks, a clear pattern emerges. India has consistently refused to choose sides in a way that would foreclose options. It recognised Palestine and built ties with Israel. It deepened relations with the Sunni Gulf monarchies while maintaining its strategic project with Shia Iran. It joined a US-backed grouping while preserving its strategic autonomy.

The unifying goal behind this complexity has remained steady: securing energy supplies, protecting the large Indian diaspora and the remittances they send home, promoting trade, and ensuring regional stability. The methods have evolved from solidarity politics to hard-headed strategic engagement, but the underlying interests have stayed remarkably constant.

What do you think? Can India sustain its delicate balancing act in West Asia indefinitely, or will sharpening regional conflicts eventually force it to make harder choices? And which matters more for India’s future in the region: its economic and energy ties, or its strategic partnerships and connectivity projects?

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Table of Contents

The foundations of solidarity 🔗

The 1992 turning point 🔗

Why the shift happened 🔗

Balancing Israel and Palestine in practice 🔗

The Gulf pivot and the Look West policy 🔗

Defence cooperation with the Gulf 🔗

Iran and the Chabahar port 🔗

Managing American sanctions 🔗

New minilateral groupings 🔗

The I2U2 group 🔗

The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor 🔗

The thread running through it all 🔗