January 26, 2003	Sunday	Ziqa’ad 22,1423

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

NEW DELHI, Jan 25: Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said on Saturday that his country’s bid to get India’s nod to a gas pipeline project that runs through Pakistan had made a modest headway, but he felt more work was still needed to remove New Delhi’s mistrust of Islamabad’s guarantees on the issue.

“Of course we have made progress, there’s no doubt about that,” Kharrazi told Dawn after a joint news conference by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, during which the two countries signed a New Delhi Declaration that lauds their “hydrocarbon cooperation”.

“We have Pakistan’s commitment on this (pipeline),” Kharrazi said. “But as far as removing the mistrust between these countries is concerned, we felt, after the talks between the president and the prime minister, that more work needs to be done to bring them to resume a dialogue.”

Vajpayee himself, speaking in Hindi, put the issue in perspective in his own way, when he said: “Iran has gas. We need gas. But there are obstacles in the way that we are trying to address. We want this to work out in a way that both countries (Iran and India) find it satisfactory and also find it beneficial in the future.”

“We want LNG from Iran. We are discussing that. What prices and so on will be decided soon.”

Khatami is leading a high-power delegation, including Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, Defence Minister Ali Shamkhani, Science and Technology Minister Mostafa Moeen and Oil Minister Bijan Zangneh.

Kharrazi denied there was any mediation effort by Iran to resolve the row between India and Pakistan.

Observers said part of the problem was their history.

They said Iran had helped Pakistan with naval support during the 1965 war with India, while on the other hand Vajpayee was foreign minister when he hosted the Shah of Iran’s last state visit abroad, a faux pas he had to struggle to put behind him with quick gestures to the new Khomeini regime.

The pipeline project through Pakistan has been opposed by India in the past over fears that it could be used by Islamabad to blackmail New Delhi in times of crisis.

Kharrazi’s comments confirmed what Pakistani officials have said —- that president Khatami did convey to Mr Vajpayee President Pervez Musharraf’s solemn guarantee to India for the security of the pipeline and its unhindered flow.

Yet, political analysts say, this may not yet be enough to plug the most important loophole in the project, namely, a reluctance on the part of the United States to give Iran any central role in the growing energy markets in the region.

Simultaneously, a private view held by rightwing Hindu hardliners is that they would not want Pakistan to get close to a billion dollars in transit fees from the project, as they see the money thus raised as having the potential of being used to generate funds for militants inimical to India.

The Iranian president, speaking of Iran-India cooperation to help Afghanistan rehabilitate, warned that Afghans were a proud people and if international promises to help restore their pride with genuine reconstruction efforts failed, the situation in that country could relapse into chaos.