|
Sarkaritel.com News and
Features
Iran invites India, Pak for talks on IPI
Monday, February 04, 2008
Trying to find a breakthrough in the trans-border gas pipeline
deal, Iran has invited Indian and Pakistani petroleum
ministers to Tehran to sort out their differences on the
contentious transit fee issue.
Iran`s Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari yesterday said the
petroleum ministers of India and Pakistan would come to Tehran
later this month to discuss the multi-billion dollar
Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project.
"We have invited the Indian petroleum minister with the
Pakistanis to come here ... And they have accepted," Nozari
told a news conference in Tehran yesterday.
Iran has suggested February 12 or 13 as dates for talks on the
gas pipeline, media reports said here.
India`s Petroleum Minister Murli Deora and his Pakistani
counterpart Ahsan Ullah Khan held discussions in London on
January 26 on the project, with both sides expressing their
keenness to put it on stream.
Though New Delhi and Islamabad have reached an understanding
on the transportation tariff payable to Pakistan, the two
nations have not yet arrived at any agreement on payment of a
separate transit fee to Pakistan for using its territory.
Three-fourth of the pipeline will be passing through Pakistan
which will also use the pipeline for providing gas to its
consumers.
The pipeline is to be laid in the three nations separately.
Iran would lay a 1,100-km pipeline from the Persian Gulf to
the Iran-Pakistan border, while Pakistan would lay a 1,035 km
from its border with Iran to the Indian border. India would
then pipe the gas to consumption centres.
The total cost of the project was estimated to be over seven
billion dollars in 2006.
E-Mail :
newseditor@sarkaritel.com |
