By Prensa Latina,
New Delhi : Pakistan and India have solved all the bilateral and commercial differences that prevented them from moving ahead in building a gas pipeline from Iran, said here Pakistani Foreign Minister Mahmoud Qureshi Saturday.
The Pakistani Foreign Minister is on a working visit in New Delhi and had a meeting with the Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas in which total understanding was confirmed.
That arrangement represents a significant step forward to begin the construction of the pipeline at a cost of 7.5 billion dollars.
The main discrepancy between Islamabad and New Delhi consisted on the payment of so-called traffic quotas. India was in disagreement with the amount fixed by Pakistan.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi stated that his government does not have any objection to the demand of New Delhi for Iran to give the custody of the gas in the Indo-Pakistani border, and not in the Iranian-Pakistani border, just as Tehran had suggested before.
Qureshi also assured that his country will adopt all the necessary security measures to protect the pipeline and the course of the gas.
A meeting last April in the Pakistani capital between the ministers of Petroleum of the two countries made things easier to find the conciliatory formula.
The secretaries of both ministries will meet July 1st in Madrid, Spain, to discuss a common strategy because of Iran’s proposal to revise the clause for prices of the gas, already agreed by the three nations, local news agency PTI reported Saturday.
Qureshi traveled to New Delhi to continue consolidating the peace dialogue between the two countries and bilateral cooperation.