Pipeline talks

As expected, the talks on Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project ended in Tehran on Thursday on an inconclusive but positive note. Iran proposed its price and Pakistan and India said they needed time for consultations on the subject.
The three parties decided to meet again on April 30. So it looked like things were moving forward on the project even though a formal agreement remained to be signed. But then Iran's Deputy Oil Minister, Mohammed Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian, came up with a caveat.
Said he, "We have told them that a government commitment necessitates a vote in the Iranian parliament, and we will need another six or seven extra months for that." On the face of it, it is an admirable decision of the Tehran government to seek parliamentary approval for its commitment to the project. At the same time, it is rather intriguing that Tehran should look for parliamentary approval at this late stage. And the timeframe of six to seven months sought for that is also not easy to understand.
As a matter of fact, Nejad-Hosseinian's statement needs to be viewed in the backdrop of an increasingly stiffening US posture vis-à-vis Iran, especially a new bill that a congressional committee - the House International Relations Committee - approved on Wednesday by a 37 to 3 majority vote. It seeks to impose tougher sanctions against Iran and international firms that might want to invest in the country's energy sector.
This is in addition to a previous law that placed restrictions on investments in Iran's energy industry, and which Washington had been using to pressure Pakistan and India to abandon the IPI pipeline project. The Bush administration has expressed its opposition to the new bill, saying it would divide the international community over Iran's nuclear programme.
So far as the IPI energy project is concerned, for a time, India seemed to have wavered on its commitment when it voted against Iran in the IAEA Board and also replaced its Oil Minister Manishankar Aiyar - an ardent supporter of the project - with a minister who is known to have close business links with the US. However, during Bush's recent visit to Pakistan and India, both governments exhorted him to reconsider his country's opposition to the project that, they explained, they needed badly.
That was when following his meeting with President General Pervez Musharraf, the US President said, "we understand you need to get natural gas in the region, and that's fine." Apparently, the new congressional move as well as the recent designation, in a policy document, of Iran as the main enemy of the US, has created fresh apprehensions in Tehran about the project's viability.
Instead of Pakistan and India telling it they wish to withdraw from the project, it would like to do that from its end, which is, perhaps, why it has said it needs six to seven months to get a parliamentary approval for the project.
Of course, Pakistan and India have to act in their self-interest. Which requires that they maintain good relations with both the US and Iran.
Even though Iran's case is in the Security Council, efforts are still on in Moscow to find some kind of a solution to the issue. One can only hope, despite the tough rhetoric flying between Washington and Tehran, that Russia and China would find a way to salvage the situation from the brink. It is also important for Pakistan, India as well as China to forge long-term regional energy links. In fact, India and China have already agreed to cooperate rather than compete in the field of energy security.
On Wednesday, Pakistan's Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Resources, Naseer Khan Mengal, told this paper that this country would assist China in extending its white oil pipeline or in constructing a new one to help it meet its energy requirement by importing oil from Saudi Arabia.
Acting as an energy corridor between the oil-rich Central Asia as well as West Asia on the one side and India and China on the other, Pakistan offers great opportunities for energy co-operation among the three neighbouring countries. They must forge a deep and strong co-operation in the field, resisting all outside efforts to block any part of it on one pretext or another.