Foreign secretary Vikram Misri visited the Iran embassy on Thursday to convey condolences over Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death, and external affairs minister S. Jaishankar had a phone conversation with his Iranian counterpart Seyed Abbas Araghchi.
The developments came amid widespread domestic criticism of the Indian government’s silence on the Iranian Supreme Leader’s assassination and on Wednesday’s torpedoing of an Iranian navy vessel in the Indian Ocean. (Late at night, India issued a bland statement on the torpedo attack.)
The Jaishankar-Araghchi conversation was the second time the two had spoken since the joint US-Israel firing on Iran began on Saturday. The talks came at a time Iran has threatened to target any ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz amid reports that Tehran has made an exception for China.
Earlier in the day, Araghchi had highlighted that the Iranian frigate, Dena, was returning to Iran from India when it was attacked.
“The U.S. has perpetrated an atrocity at sea, 2,000 miles away from Iran’s shores. Frigate Dena, a guest of India’s Navy carrying almost 130 sailors, was struck in international waters without warning,” he posted on X.
“Mark my words: The U.S. will come to bitterly regret (the) precedent it has set.”
The Iranian warship was returning from Visakhapatnam after participating in an international fleet review that India’s navy had organised last month. A US submarine sunk it off Sri Lanka’s southern coast on Wednesday.
The Indian government faced severe criticism from the Opposition and foreign policy wonks on Thursday over its silence on the US bringing the war closer to India’s neighbourhood with the torpedoing of the frigate.
Strategic thinker Brahma Chellaney suggested that the US torpedoing of the IRIS Dena in India’s maritime backyard was more than a battlefield event, it was a strategic embarrassment for New Delhi.
“By sinking a vessel returning from an Indian-hosted multilateral exercise, Washington effectively turned India’s maritime neighborhood into a war zone, raising uncomfortable questions about India’s authority in its own backyard,” he said in a post on X.
“In diplomatic terms, the strike violated the unwritten code of naval hospitality. Attacking a ship immediately after it leaves a host’s waters is widely seen as a slight to that host. The message to participating navies is stark: attending India’s exercises may not guarantee safety once they sail away.
“The implications go deeper. Prime Minister Modi’s MAHASAGAR vision — positioning India as the Indian Ocean’s ‘preferred security partner’ — rests on the idea that New Delhi can convene cooperation and maintain stability in the region.
“The US strike shattered that image by demonstrating that a distant power can employ lethal force in India’s maritime backyard without coordination.
“Worse, the attack occurred near Sri Lanka, just south of India’s maritime boundary, precisely the space India hopes to keep insulated from Middle Eastern wars. Instead, the Indian Ocean suddenly looks like an extension of that conflict.”
Former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal said: “The Iranian ship will not be where it was if we had not invited it to take part in our Milan exercise. We were the hosts…. The Iranian naval personnel had paraded before our President.
“The attack by the US submarine was premeditated as the US was aware of the Iranian ship’s presence in the exercise to which the US navy was invited….
“The US has ignored India’s sensitivities as the ship was in these waters because of India’s invitation. We are far from politically or militarily responsible for the US attack. Our ‘responsibility’ is at a moral and human plane.
“A word of condolence by the Indian Navy (after political clearance) at the loss of lives of those who were our invitees and saluted our President would be in order.”
Another former foreign secretary, Nirupama Menon Rao, underlined an Asean statement that urges respect for international law and notes that the US and Israel started the war and Iran retaliated.
“Asean has spoken with clarity about the war in West Asia. India remains strangely silent,” she said.
“A country that once championed international law and restraint should not appear tongue-tied when conflict threatens an entire region. Strategic partnerships should not come at the cost of moral voice. Who started the fire?”
Further, she said on X: “If India aspires to be a major power — and a civilisational voice — it cannot speak loudly about sovereignty in some crises and fall silent in others.
“Strategic partnerships are important. But strategic autonomy also means retaining the courage to speak when war threatens to consume an entire region. History should illuminate judgment, not be used as a convenient alibi.”
As the ruling party’s ecosystem sought to justify India’s silence as a way of not getting drawn into the conflict, a former Indian ambassador to Iran, K.C. Singh, stressed that silence wasn’t diplomacy.
“India is getting pushed deeper and deeper into a corner. If BJP thinks US will value India’s tacit support just recall President Trump scolding Nato for never helping US,” he said.
“This was after many Nato members had fought in Afghanistan and lost soldiers.”