ISLAMABAD, 1 May 2006 — Iran and Pakistan yesterday vowed to work on a bilateral gas pipeline project if India failed to join them.
The original plan called for a $7 billion pipeline to pump Iranian gas to India through Pakistani territory, and officials said they aimed to sign a deal in June. The cost and timing of a bilateral deal for a shorter pipeline has yet to be determined.
Ahmed Waqar, secretary at Pakistan’s Petroleum Ministry, said Pakistan and Iran agreed to go ahead with the bilateral pipeline regardless of the outcome of the trilateral project.
“Both sides agreed to make immediate efforts for concluding the bilateral arrangements,” said a statement issued after three days of talks.
Hosseinian told a press conference the gas pipeline project would not be affected if the United Nations imposed sanctions on Tehran over its controversial nuclear program.
“I don’t think anybody could put sanctions on the oil industry and gas industry,” he said.
“Due to the sensitivity of the oil market any action like that will increase oil prices very high and I believe that the UN and any other body will not put any sanctions on oil or the oil industry,” Hosseinian said, when asked about the future of the project if sanctions were imposed.
The 2,600-kilometer pipeline from Iran’s southern Pars field is estimated to cost more than $7 billion.
Talks between India, Iran and Pakistan on the project ended in March in Tehran without any agreement.
The United States objects to the project and is pushing for another pipeline to South Asian countries from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan. Washington accuses Tehran of supporting terrorism and attempting to make a nuclear bomb.
Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri told reporters after attending a workshop of South Asian journalists in Islamabad yesterday that any use of force against Iran would “benefit” extremist forces in the Islamic world. “Pakistan desires a peaceful resolution of the issue as, God forbid, if there is an attack on Iran it will be a blow to moderate forces in the Islamic world.”
“The attack on Iran will be considered an attack on yet another Muslim country which will not be in the interest of international peace and also the Western world,” he added.
Pakistan, despite being a key US ally in its global “war on terror”, has said it would go ahead with the Iranian pipeline project as it needs energy to fuel its economic growth.
Pakistani and Iranian officials discussed gas pricing and agreed to enhance off-take volumes of gas from 2.1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) to 2.8 bcfd in case India did not join the project, Waqar said.
He, however, expressed the hope that India would not back out of the project given the fact that its energy requirements were increasing tremendously.
Waqar said Pakistan has conducted its own feasibility study of the project and around $2.5 billion would be needed for laying the pipeline within Pakistan.
The officials would meet again on May 25 in Islamabad and the petroleum ministers of the two countries would sign a joint declaration on the project in Tehran in June, he said.
Hosseinian on Friday urged Pakistan and India to press ahead with the project or face the prospect of buying 1 million barrels a day of imported oil. The United States has been urging Pakistan and India not to do business with Tehran. The US has offered to provide technical know-how for India’s civil nuclear program as part of a strategy to forge strong links with the fast-rising Indian economy.
