NEW DELHI, May 19: Indian Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar will begin a three-day visit to Pakistan from June 5 to weigh Delhi’s options of getting gas pipelines from Turkmenistan and Iran, official sources said. There would also be an effort to press Pakistan to import diesel and petrochemical products from India.

Mr Aiyar’s visit was earlier expected to take place this month, but it has been apparently upstaged by Indian opposition leader Lal Kishan Advani. The Bharatiya Janata Party president is now expected to spend much effort on bilateral ties with his expected arrival in Islamabad on May 30.

Significantly he arrives a day after India and Pakistan are to wind up important talks on Siachen and Sir Creek. Mr Advani’s week-long family tour, which probably includes a visit down memory lane to his former home in Hyderabad would not be too different from Mr Aiyar’s similar links with Lahore, where he was born in pre-partition India.

According to the Press Trust of India Western oil companies see a growing competition as Indian and Chinese oil companies invest abroad to meet their countries’ oil needs, with some of them asking oil-producing nations to avoid such deals.