By IANS
New Delhi : Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to visit Iran later this year after a meeting of the bilateral Joint Commission in June or July.
Diplomatic sources here said Tuesday that the Joint Commission meeting, which is chaired by the two foreign ministers, will take place in June or July, followed by the prime minister’s visit to Iran, which is likely to take place in the first half of July.
The last Indian prime minister to visit Iran was of Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2001. Iranian President Seyyed Mohammad Khatami visited India in 2003, when he was the guest of honour at the Republic Day parade.
India has meanwhile yet to give a “positive response” to Iran’s invitation for a trilateral meeting of oil ministers next week to sort out the impasse over the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.
On Jan 26, Indian Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora met his Pakistani counterpart Ahsan Ullah Khan in London and had expressed keenness to operationalise the pipeline.
India had not attended the last three scheduled trilateral meetings, saying it had to first sort out differences on the transit fee and transportation tariffs with Pakistan.
The sources pointed out that India and Iran would like to have the gas pipeline agreement ready before the prime minister’s visit, so that there are some concrete “deliverables” for the trip.