Pranab Mukherjee to visit Iran on Feb 6 - 7

New Delhi, Jan 27: External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee will pay a two-day visit to Iran from February 6 to co-chair the 15th Indo-Iran Joint Commission meeting and have discussions with his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki.

Official sources said the External Affairs Minister will have discussions with the Iranian leaders on the entire gamut of bilateral relations, including the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) Gas Pipeline project.

The Iranian nuclear standoff and the security situation in the region, including Afghanistan, is also likely to come up during the talks, according to the sources.

The last Joint Commission meeting took place in New Delhi in February 2005. It was co-Chaired by then External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh and his counterpart Dr Kamal Kharrazi.

The annual meeting could not be held in 2006 because India did not have an External Affairs Minister for a long time after Mr Natwar Singh resigned over the issue of Volcker Committee report.

However, Minister of State for External Affairs, E Ahamed, had visited Tehran last year after India voted against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the Iranian nuclear issue in October 2005.

The Iranian Foreign Minister had also travelled to India in November last year.

A two-day tripartite meeting between officials of India, Iran and Pakistan was held in the Iranian capital on January 24-25 to reach an agreement on pricing formula of the seven billion dollar gas pipeline project.

The sources said the three countries had agreed over a price formula for the gas to be delivered to India from Iran through a 2700 km pipeline via Pakistan.

Iran will export 90-million cubic metres of natural gas to Pakistan and another 60-million cubic metres to India a day via Pakistan.

UNI

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