US Ambassador to India David Mulford on Monday lent credence to the rumours that it was because of American pressure that the then petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar was thrown out of the petroleum ministry during the last Cabinet reshuffle.
The reason? Because Aiyar was too gung-ho on the envisaged Iran-India gas pipeline that Washington strongly opposed.
Mulford also said that Murli Deora, the new petroleum minister, has a much broader knowledge of the country's energy problem and realpolitik.
During the question and answer session that followed his address to the conservative American Enterprise Institute on -- The US-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Initiative,' Mulford -- who earlier this year committed a major faux pas when he warned in an interview that the US-India nuclear deal would die a natural death if India failed to vote with the United States and the European Union at the International Atomic Energy Agency to isolate Iran and report it to the UN Security Council for non-compliance with its nonproliferation commitments -- said that since India has an acute energy problem, New Delhi is "correct to look at all possible sources that it can."
Responding to a question on whether India was aware that there is a US law on the books that kicks in sanctions for those dealing with Iran, the envoy said that when the Iran-India pipeline issue -- first surfaced, "I had a conversation with the minister of petroleum (Aiyar) and the purpose of that was to simply remind him and explain to him that this piece of legislation which has never been employed still existed in our books, and that this was something they need to be aware of."
Blaming certain quarters for their "tendency to somehow link the civil nuclear initiative with the pipeline," the envoy said that this "was completely off-base. There was no relationship whatsoever."
Mulford said the civilian nuclear deal was "based on the concept that I described today on the future of India's energy needs and so on." But he argued that "the pipeline is a much longer range and difficult project. . ."
Mulford said that consequently, "beyond just letting them know that we have this concern, we've simply been watching this situation and there's isn't really anything more that we need to do."
But he noted that "the Indians have made a change recently in their ministry of petroleum, which is read in India at least, as the removal of the person who was very much keen on that project, out of that department."
"There is a new person in there. He has a much broader knowledge of the energy problem and so on. So I don't see why that really should be a problem," Mulford added, implying the new petroleum minister Murli Deora obviously was aware that India going ahead with the pipeline with Iran would trigger Congressionally mandated US laws on the books.