India granted docking permission to Iranian naval vessels after their participation in multinational maritime events earlier this year, even as regional tensions escalated following a United States submarine strike that sank one of the ships near Sri Lanka. The Iranian vessels IRIS Lavan, IRIS Bushehr and IRIS Dena had taken part in the Milan 2026 multilateral naval exercise and the International Fleet Review held in Visakhapatnam in February. These events, which brought together navies from