NEW DELHI, Aug 3: Iran told India on Wednesday to make up its mind soon, amid fading prospects, about a troubled gas pipeline project via Pakistan, because there were other buyers waiting, including Iraq. An Iranian delegation, headed by Deputy Oil Minister Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian, began an important two-day joint committee discussion with Indian officials on a day when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told parliament, albeit weakly, that the project was on.

This was not the impression of the Iranian delegates who spoke privately to Dawn and who thought that New Delhi was yielding to American pressure against the deal. Senior Iranian officials also said they were not certain about Pakistan being serious in its claim to go ahead with the project even if India backs off.

“Pakistan says it will buy gas from us even if India doesn’t, which is good news. But we are not ruling out that they are in fact seeking more concessions from the Americans by taking such a defiant position,” a senior advisor to Mr. Nejad-Hosseinian said. He asked not to be named.

The official admitted that the cost of piped gas from Iran to Pakistan would be quite expensive for Islamabad without the comfort of the annual transit fees of more than $500 million it would get if India joins the project. He also mentioned US offers of alternative energy resources to Pakistan as indication of the political pressures involved.

On the other hand, Dr. Mohammad Reza Aligoodraz, a project engineer with the National Iranian Gas Export Co. (NIGEC) said Iran was likely to stitch up a contract within a month or two to export piped gas to Iraq.

“We already have an active pipeline that exports petroleum products to the border regions of Iraq,” Dr. Aligoodraz said. This was confirmed by Mr. Mohammed Feizi, an expert in the marketing ans sales division of NIGEC, who is travelling with the delegation to India.

Mr Feizi said a deal to export crude oil to parts of Iraq was also being considered. Other Iranian officials recalled that the United States had been involved in the Iran-Contra deal in the 1980s, using Iranian oil deals even at the height of US-Iranian hostilities.

On Wednesday, at the start of their two-day talks, Iran proposed signing a Memorandum of Understanding with India for setting a timeframe for implementation of the long-delayed 7.4-billion dollar gas pipeline.

Press Trust of India said New Delhi appeared unwilling to enter into such an agreement until its security concerns were addressed.

Tehran, at the beginning of a two-day special Joint Working Group meeting on the pipeline, proposed an MoU, similar to the one it signed with Pakistan last month, setting a clear timeframe.

“We have proposed an MoU to have a clear timeframe between seller (Iran) and buyer (India),” NIGEC managing director R Javadi told PTI here.

Iran wants the project structure to be in place by December end and implementation mechanism and project financing model by April next year so as to begin work on the pipeline, that is to feed energy hungry markets in India and Pakistan, by second half of 2006.

“We want to see project implementation in 2006,” he said.

However, New Delhi was not willing to sign an MoU. “We already have Heads of Agreement between NIGEC on the Iranian side and GAIL/IOC on the Indian side. Most of the points they are proposing in the MoU are already covered in HoA,” a top official in the Ministry of Petroleum said.