NEW DELHI, July 26: India on Tuesday denied that it had held official talks with the United States over the proposed gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan and said comments by senior US officials objecting to the project were made only through the media. A statement to this effect was made by Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar in the Rajya Sabha, the parliament’s upper house. He said the governments of India, Pakistan and Iran were expecting to work out a final shape of the project and its implications by the end of this year.

Indian opposition parties and the government’s leftist allies had objected to what they see as a ‘change in the tone’ of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the controversy-hit pipeline after his meeting with US President George W. Bush in Washington last week. Dr Singh had told a Washington daily after the meeting that the project was fraught with serious risks.

Mr Aiyar appeared to allay apprehensions of pressure on the pipeline during any bilateral interaction with US officials, including, it would seem, the Bush-Manmohan Singh meeting. “The question of the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline has not been officially raised by the US authorities. No discussions have been held between the Indian petroleum and natural gas minister and the US secretary of state in this regard,” he said.

He told parliament that the Indian government is discussing the details of the multi-billion dollar project with the governments of Iran and Pakistan. “The discussion is progressing satisfactorily,” he said. A meeting of the India-Iran special joint working group (JWG) is likely to take place in New Delhi in early August, Mr Aiyar said.

Earlier, an Iranian technical-level delegation accompanied by the representatives of BHP-Billiton, their project consultants who had prepared a pre-feasibility report for the project, visited New Delhi in June and made a presentation covering some technical and commercial aspects of the project.

The findings of the financial advisors supported by technical and legal consultants will be discussed at future scheduled meetings of the JWGs. These meetings will be reviewed by minister-level interactions over the next few months.

It is expected that by the end of the year, the three governments will be in a position to decide on the project structure and related technical, financial and legal aspects of the project. Pakistan says it will go ahead with the project bilaterally with Tehran should India decide to opt out of the deal.