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Dubai: India will soon hold talks with Pakistan to discuss a transit fee deal for the Iranian gas it will receive through the proposed $7.4-billion pipeline, the Indian ambassador to the UAE said.
Talmiz Ahmad said the formation of a new government in Islamabad will help in concluding an agreement. He denied that the delay is because of US opposition to the gas pipe-line.
Differences between the two countries over the gas transit fee remain unresolved for a year as the talks have been hampered by troubled domestic Pakistani politics.
"That is the only thing that has delayed it, not America, not anything else," Ahmad told Gulf News, adding that the US "has never been a factor" in the Iran-Pakistan-India energy supply plan. "Let the government come into play (in Pakistan), then they will form the bureaucracy," he said when asked about the next round of talks.
Pakistan and Iran have already reached a gas purchase agreement.
Despite New Delhi's repeated assertions that there is no pressure on it from the US to ditch the project, the issue refuses to go away.
Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported that Iran could invite China to join the pipeline plan if India walked away from it.
Pakistan will be using about half of the gas being supplied by Iran through the pipeline that will be 1,900 kilometres inside its territory.
The project gives Iran a key customer in India for 30 years.
On the other hand, Pakistan needs to make up for its own depleting domestic gas production.
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