IPI proj: Pak, Indian petroleum ministers to visit Iran

Tehran, Feb.3: Petroleum ministers of India and Pakistan will visit Tehran later this month to discuss the next steps to be taken to activate a multi-billion dollar tripartite gas pipeline project to transport Iranian gas to India via Pakistan.

"We have invited the Indian Petroleum Minister (Murli Deora) with the Pakistanis to come here ... and they have accepted," Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari told reporters here on Saturday. "We are making efforts to make it a tripartite deal or it will become a bilateral one," he said. The talks are to be held between February 14 and 16. In November 2007, Iran gave India a four-month deadline to formally agree its participation after finalising the content of the 7.4 billion dollar gas export deal with Pakistan.

An early October agreement between Iran and Pakistan marked a breakthrough when they agreed to a periodic revision of gas prices every three years instead of a long-term fixed price. India has come under US pressure to pull out of the project, as part of Washington's drive to sanction Iran.

ANI