WASHINGTON: When Hillary Clinton, the then U.S. Secretary of States, suddenly made a short visit to India in May 2012, it was thought as her farewell trip to New Delhi as the top American diplomat.
But in her book 'Hard Choices' that hit the stores today, Clinton discloses that her visit to India was with the sole purpose of convincing New Delhi to reduce its dependence on Iranian oil, which was successful by the end of her trip.
Clinton writes that she decided to visit India to personally convince the Indian leadership on this issue as it was the only major country which was not willing to follow the American line.
India, she writes, initially publicly refused Western entreaties to reduce its reliance on Iranian oil.
"In our private conversations Indian leaders agreed that peace in the Middle East was important and were acutely aware that six million Indians lived and worked in the Gulf and could be vulnerable to political or economic instability," the 66-year-old leader writes.
"At the same time, though, India's fast-growing economy depended on a steady supply of energy, and they worried that their energy needs were so great that there was no viable way to meet them without Iranian oil," she says.
