Gas pipeline project: Pakistan and Iran fail to reach understanding on key issues

Pakistan and Iran on Saturday could not reach an understanding on key issues of price mechanism and security for bilateral gas pipeline. Pakistani side led by Petroleum Secretary Furrukh Qayyum made its best to convince the Iranian during day long meeting that finalisation of draft for agreement for bilateral pipeline project was extremely important.
But it did not work and finally the two sides left the meeting room late on Saturday night without reaching any conclusion. Desperate with unexpected outcome of the last two days'' parleys with Iranian team, Furrukh Qayyum had only one answer to repeated calls made by this correspondent till mid Saturday night that he cannot tell anything.
A high level visiting Iran''s delegation, headed by Dr Ghamini held discussions with Pakistani officials on gas line project for the last two days. The discussions covered wide-ranging issues including gas pricing formula, size and route of the pipeline, taxation and other facilities to be accorded by both the governments to make the project a reality.
Sources said the two sides sharply differed over all key issues including backup facility size of the pipeline, role of third party for ensuring continuous supply of gas and security to the project.
Iran and Pakistan had decided to go for the project without New Delhi the other day. The two sides wanted positive result of talks to at least show India, which did not participate in this round that they can go for the project even without New Delhi.
Iran and Pakistan had invited India for the project to make it economically and commercially viable at an early stage. India also showed keen interest and became part of the discussion. Its delegation participated in many meetings and made Iran and Pakistan feel that New Delhi was more than interested to become a partner in the project to meet its growing gas demand. However, it''s time and again going back and forth changed situation more than once. Its shaky behaviour left Iran and Pakistan in complete limbo.
At last Islamabad and Tehran strongly felt that their policy of keep on waiting for Indian participation will ultimately cause irreparable loss to the project. Finally, they decided to go for the project without India.