The Hindu : National : Uncertainty over gas pipeline talks

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Tuesday, Oct 30, 2007
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Uncertainty over gas pipeline talks

Special Correspondent

India yet to respond to Pakistan invite

NEW DELHI: With mounting U.S. pressure on India not to go ahead with the India-Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline, uncertainty dogs the proposed talks between India and Pakistan on transit fee that has hampered progress on the pipeline. Highly placed official sources said India has still not responded to the invitation of the Pakistan government to hold talks to resolve the transit fee issue. New Delhi abstained from the trilateral discussions in Tehran in the last week of September over the issue.

Pakistan’s Petroleum Secretary Farrakh Qayyum had on October 18 written to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry inviting India for holding bilateral parleys in November. Sources said the latest developments on the India-U.S. front had created uncertainty over the go-ahead for the proposed talks and subsequent parleys with Tehran on the contentious issue. On October 25, U.S. Under Secretary of Treasury for International Affairs David McCormick had stated: “With regard to the Iran pipeline issue … we are hopeful that India won’t move forward on this.”

With Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson currently on a visit to India, it is likely the issue would figure during high-level discussions.

Sources said New Delhi and Islamabad had reached a broad understanding on the transportation tariff payable to Pakistan for wheeling natural gas through the 1,035-km pipeline segment in that country. But the two nations have not yet arrived at an agreement on a transit fee payable to Pakistan for allowing usage of its territory for passage of the pipeline to India.

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