Zardari arrives in Tehran for gas pipeline talks - media
Pakistan yet to ship wheat to iran
TEHRAN, Feb 27, (AFP): Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari arrived in Tehran on Wednesday for discussions on a much-delayed $7.5 billion gas pipeline project which is opposed by the United States, Iranian media reported.
Iranian oil minister Rostam Qasemi welcomed Zardari on his arrival. He was later to meet with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“The trip is aimed at deepening bilateral ties and also discussing regional and international issues which concern both nations,” the Fars news agency reported.
“Bilateral energy projects including the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline will also be discussed,” it added.
The pipeline project has run into repeated problems, including Pakistan’s difficulty in finding funds and opposition to the project by Washington, which has slapped Iran with a raft of sanctions over its nuclear activities.
The Pakistani media had last year reported that Zardari would visit Iran in mid-December 2012, when a final agreement was to have been signed, but it was delayed.
In 2010, Iran and Pakistan agreed that Tehran would supply between 750 million cubic feet (21 million cubic metres) and one billion cubic feet per day of natural gas by mid-2015.
Islamabad has said that it will pursue the project regardless of US pressure, saying the gas is needed to help the country overcome its energy crisis that has led to debilitating blackouts and suffocated industry. Iran has almost completed the pipeline work in its territory, but Pakistan has not yet started construction of 780 kilometers (490 miles) of the pipeline on its side, which is said to cost some $1.5 billion.
Sanctions-hit Iran finally agreed to finance one third of the costs of laying the pipeline through Pakistani territory to Nawabshah, north of Karachi, with the work to be carried out by an Iranian company. The partnership will be of enormous benefit to both countries.
The Islamic republic has been strangled by a Western oil embargo that has seen its crude exports halve in the past year, while Pakistan has an acute need for energy, and plans to produce 20 percent of its electricity from Iranian gas.
Also: DUBAI: Pakistan is yet to ship any wheat to Iran from a 1-million tonne barter deal agreed last August due to government disagreements, an executive from Pakistani grain exporter Seatrade Group said.
International and local trade sources said progress on the deal could be slowed further by Iran’s finding ways to work around sanctions with food purchases and looming elections in Pakistan.
A first shipment of 100,000 tonnes was supposed to be delivered to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas in mid-Feburary, said the executive who declined to be named. “The 100,000 tonnes is still in the pipeline, nothing has been shipped...a government-to-government issue that needs to be resolved,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of an industry in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday.
He declined to give further details on what the dispute concerned, however industry sources told Reuters that it might involve finance disruptions from Iran’s side.