NEW DELHI, July 11: An eight-member delegation from Pakistan, led by Petroleum Secretary Ahmad Waqar, arrived here on Monday to hold the first meeting of the Working Group on Iran-Pakistan-India Gas Pipeline. Pakistani officials said the meeting of the two petroleum secretaries would begin with a call on Tuesday on Indian Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar.
The agenda is initially meant to be confined to the Iran project but officials said Mr Aiyar had also expressed India’s interest in the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline when he had recently visited Islamabad.
The Pakistani officials said a third dimension of the discussions underway with India was the Amritsar-Lahore bus service. A trial run of the proposed link could take place this month.
APP adds: “It is not only the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline but we will also be touching upon the possibility of India joining the projects of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan and Qatar-Pakistan” during the meeting, Mr Waqar said in an interview.
“It will be a more composite discussion and in the light of the joint press statement, issued during the visit of Indian Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Ayiar to Islamabad last month, it is a step forward in that direction,” he added.
“We are looking forward to a very productive and meaningful session with our Indian counterparts and we expect that at the conclusion of our talks, the process of import through the gas pipeline will be taken forward”, Mr Waqar said.
Answering a question about the likelihood of a joint statement at the end of the two-day talks, the secretary for petroleum said: “We will be discussing it tomorrow and we will expect some sort of statement whether it is a press statement or a joint statement, the decision will be taken tomorrow”.
“We have come with an open mind to discuss all possible aspects of this project,” he maintained, adding that the basic objective was future prosperity of people of the two countries.
