NEW DELHI, Jan 14: India’s oil minister on Friday denied a report that New Delhi may pull out of a seven-billion-dollar joint project to build a gas pipeline from Iran via Pakistan.

Mani Shankar Aiyar told the Press Trust of India that its earlier report quoting unnamed officials in the petroleum ministry, was “completely wrong”.

“It is completely wrong to suggest that either I or any one in authority in India has advocated withdrawing from the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline,” he said before leaving Beijing, where he has been holding talks with Chinese officials. PTI had said that India, fearing a hostile reaction from the United States, might instead opt to buy gas from Iran at the Indian border.—AFP