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beyond Tehran in the Gulf  India looks beyond Tehran in the Gulf
March 17, 2010 16:17 IST  With his visit to Saudi Arabia, Dr
Singh has re-emphasised that when it comes to the Gulf, Iran
will not be the focus of Indian foreign policy, writes Harsh V
Pant.  Prime Minster Manmohan Singh visited Saudi Arabia earlier
this month after a gap of 28 years and promptly elevated the
Indo-Saudi relationship to a 'strategic partnership'. In the
last few years India's policy toward the Gulf region has often
been viewed through the prism of India-Iran relations. The
international community and the West in particular has been
obsessed with New Delhi's ties with Tehran and has tended to
ignore India's much more substantive engagement with the Arab
Gulf states. Notwithstanding all the hype surrounding India's
ties with Iran, they remain largely under-developed even as the
significant stakes that India has in