The deal with India’s second-largest GSM operator is “definitely not this year,” said Jamal Al-Jarwan, Etisalat’s CEO for international investments.

R-Communications, which has about 100 million subscribers, said that it planned to sell a 26 percent stake in the company in June, shortly after spending about $1.8 billion on 3G spectrum in India.

R-Com earlier said a separate deal to sell its towers business had collapsed, and it had begun discussions with other potential investors.

Etisalat, one of the two telecom players in the UAE, is also considering a possible investment in Idea Cellular, India’s third largest GSM operator.

“The company is considering different options in the Indian market,” said Al Jarwan, adding that Idea was one of the “many options” the Middle Eastern group was looking at in the country.

Etisalat is the only major telecom firm with no presence in India, the fastest-growing mobile market. The total broadband connection base in India grew by 3.39 percent during July 2010, up from 9.45 million at the end of June 2010. The total telephone subscriber base in the country reached 688.38 million in July.

While Airtel added the maximum number of wireline connections at 2.6 million, Reliance ran in at second with 2.5 million new connections. Idea Cellular saw 2.7 percent rise in total wireless connection base to 70.75 million.

Etisalat has been expanding aggressively overseas after losing its monopoly in its home market. It is presently in 18 markets globally in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

An investment in India would allow Etisalat to fulfill Chairman Mohammed Omran’s goal of being an active player in a market that is forecast to approach one billion users by 2014.

According to Al-Jarwan, the UAE firm “is more keen on investing in Morocco”. Last year, the UAE operator, the second-largest telecom operator in the Gulf by market value, failed in a bid to take a stake in Meditel, Morocco’s second-largest telecommunications firm.

Separately, Pakistan has showed optimism over the resolution of dispute with Etisalat.

Pakistan’s Minister for Privatization, Senator Waqar Ahmed Khan, hoped that all matters including issues pertaining to the mutation of land in the name of PTCL and outstanding installments due from Etisalat amounting to $800 million would now soon be materialized.