By IANS
New Delhi : India will hold talks with Pakistan here Wednesday on the $7.4-billion gas pipeline from Iran, focussing on the issue of the transit fee payable to Islamabad for the project's passage and security, oil ministry officials said.
The bilateral talks will end Thursday morning and will be immediately followed by a two-day trilateral meeting involving Iran, also in the Indian capital, on the same issue, ministry officials added.
"The basic issue India and Pakistan will try to resolve at this meeting is how much money we should pay Pakistan for the right of way and security to the pipeline," an official at India's petroleum ministry said.
"Pakistan has been demanding a transit fee for the whole stretch of the pipeline from Iran to the Indian border. But we are arguing that since Pakistan will also use the pipeline, we should only pay for its extension to India."
The 2,300-km-long project, also called the 'peace pipeline', will initially supply some 60 million cubic meters of gas from Iran daily – to be shared equally by India and Pakistan. It will be delivered at a chosen point on the India-Pakistan border.
Iran is said to have the biggest gas reserves in the world after Russia and energy-hungry Asian countries are keen to tap this potential.