Iran warns India over Pakistan gas pipeline deal

[HAIDER]

ran to sign gas deal with Pakistan in October TEHRAN, Sept 29 (AFP) Iran will sign a multi-billion dollar gas pipeline deal with Pakistan in the absence of India by the end of October, a top Iranian oil official said on Saturday. “The peace pipeline contract ... will be ready to sign by the end of October,” Hojatollah Ghanimi-Fard, Iran's representative to the talks, told the oil ministry's news service Shana. “It was agreed that the price be calculated according to the current gas market standards,” Ghanimi-Fard was quoted as saying by the IRNA news agency. “Pakistan asked for 60 million cubic metres per day, 30 million of which was approved,” he said. “All issues of disagreement were studied again and all points have been finalized,” he said, adding the final meeting will be held in Pakistan in mid-October to “study the text of the contract to see if it does not contradict agreements.” Ghanimi-Fard said India was welcome to join the contract “whenever this country's problems are resolved and it will be a tripartite deal.” An Iranian official said earlier this week that India was not taking part in the discussions because it had yet to finalise a deal with Pakistan over the cost of transit across its neighbour's territory. The 2,600-kilometre pipeline from Iran's giant South Pars gas field would initially carry around 60 million standard cubic metres of gas per day. (Posted @ 16:20 PST)

- DAWN - Latest Stories; September 29, 2007

 

[Neo]

US asks India not to proceed with IPI project ​

NEW DELHI (October 29 2007): The United States has asked India not to proceed with Iran, Pakistan, India gas pipeline project. The leading English Indian daily reported that US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is expected to ask India to keep away from the project during his visit to India starting from Sunday.

"We are hoping that India won't move forward on [the pipeline]," a US treasury official said. The daily said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew into New Delhi two years back to tell Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government not to proceed with the India-Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project. She left, promising to pave the way for a civil nuclear co-operation agreement. Henry Paulson is expected to do the same job during his visit.

The paper also said the US Treasury Under-secretary for international affairs David McCormick told a press conference in Washington that Paulson will urge India not to move forward with the India-Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project. "We are hoping that India won't move forward on this," said McCormick.

"We think at a time when the world should be imposing greater discipline on its interactions with [Iranian] companies and financial institutions and the Iranian government more broadly, that this is not the right path forward. We have been very clear on that." McCormick went on to suggest that the US had a "profound understanding" of India's energy needs and it was "one of the underlying pieces of logic" of the nuclear deal. "But," he added, "we do not see a pipeline with Iran providing India with any real energy security given the state of the Iranian regime."

The daily said India maintains that it is interested in purchasing the Iranian gas, but the fresh round of sanctions by the US on Iran may have put the "peace pipeline" project in jeopardy.

According to reports, Pakistan's Petroleum Secretary Farrakh Qayyum has invited his Indian counterpart M.S. Srinivasan for comprehensive bilateral talks between November 1 and 3 or between November 12 and 14 in Islamabad to resolve issues relating to the project.

The US could also invoke the 1996 Iran-Libya Sanctions Act to impose sanctions on countries that assist Iran in exploiting its petroleum resources, the paper reported.

Business Recorder [Pakistan's First Financial Daily]