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Iran hopes India will persist with gas pipeline talks

NEW DELHI: Despite India-Pakistan ties entering a phase of chill, Iran on Friday hoped that New Delhi would keep its future energy needs in mind and persist with negotiations on the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project.

Maintaining that the U.S. was instrumental in the tepid progress of the IPI project, visiting Iranian Deputy Foreign Mohammad Mehdi Akhoundzadeh told journalists: “Sporadic terrorist incidents, wherever they are, should not deter the will and the determination of collective vision and wisdom of the Asian leaders to continue their march of progress.”

The Iranian Minister’s observations come at a time when India has put ties with Pakistan in the deep freeze and seems to be doing a rethink on its pre-Mumbai terror strikes offer to hold a trilateral meeting in the national capital here on the IPI gas pipeline project.

The Minister, who declined to comment on the presence of terrorist elements in Pakistan, was of the opinion that the Mumbai terror attack should not impede the implementation of the project. “We feel Asian leaders should be vigilant enough to the futuristic needs and demands of its people,” he said in a reference to the shortfall in domestic availability of natural gas in both India and Pakistan that the pipeline can bridge.

Iran has offered to host a meeting of Energy Ministers of the three countries in Tehran at the earliest to negotiate the outstanding issues of the project.

“We believe the sooner there is a decision, better outcome for the end user. Iran has the largest reserves of natural gas after Russia. But hydrocarbon reserves are not eternal and it has its own limitation,” he said .

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