Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will visit India and Pakistan this week for talks on issues including the longstanding plans for a pipeline to supply Iranian gas to the two Asian states, an Iranian official said on Sunday.
The three countries have agreed, in principle, on a pricing formula. India and Pakistan said on Friday they were just days, or weeks, away from finalising terms on the pipeline.
"It looks like arriving at this agreement will not be out of reach," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a news conference. "And it is natural that the matter--one of the most important issues of interest by the three parties--will be discussed in the trip by the President," Hosseini said. "We are hoping the project ... will be finalised soon."
Ahmadinejad is due to visit Pakistan on Monday--where he is expected to meet his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf--and India on Tuesday. The Iranian president is to make the stopovers while travelling for an official visit to Sri Lanka. The $7.6 billion project has been dubbed the 'Pipeline for Peace and Progress' because of the mutual benefits it would bring to India and Pakistan. Both are desperate to tie up future energy supplies to fuel their fast growing economies.
The pipeline would initially transport 60 million cubic metres gas (2.2 billion cubic feet) daily to Pakistan and India--half for each country. The pipeline's capacity would later rise to 150 million cubic metres. Iran has the world's second largest reserves of gas, after Russia, but has been slow to develop exports, partly because of US sanctions.
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