India will not attend the seventh trilateral meeting on the $8-billion Iran gas pipeline project slated for the third week of September in Tehran unless some crucial bilateral issues with Pakistan are resolved first.
In a September 19 letter to Iran?s ministry of petroleum?s special representative H Ghanimi Fard and Pakistan government secretary Farrakh Qayyum, the ministry of petroleum has categorically stated that New Delhi and Islamabad will have to first resolve some crucial issues bilaterally before they could be discussed on a trilateral platform. India?s letter is in response to a recent invitation by Tehran to attend the seventh trilateral meeting.
?As we have stated in the past, the bilateral issues between India and Pakistan, including inter alia the transit fee for the passage of gas through Pakistan, need to be resolved first,? said the additional secretary, ministry of petroleum and natural gas, S Sundareshan, in his letter to Ghanimi.
The letter further said, ?Besides the issue of transit fee, we (India and Pakistan) would also have to resolve between us the response to your (Iran?s) request for a ?price revision? clause. We feel that a bilateral meeting between India and Pakistan should precede the proposed trilateral meeting.?
But, despite India?s stress that issues be first resolved bilaterally, Pakistan is said to be preparing to hold talks with Iran at the proposed tri-lateral meeting. This has been confirmed by reports appearing in the Pakistani media that have said that, even if the Indians do not turn up at the trilateral meet, Pakistan will go ahead fight its case alone.
Incidentally, both India and Pakistan stand united on the price revision clause proposed by Iran. Both have opposed Iran?s proposal to review the price of gas after every five years. This is because the gas prices under the agreed pricing formula are already linked to the fluctuations in the Japan crude cocktail prices, and any further revision by Teheran will adversely affect the economics of the project.
Petroleum ministry sources said, India did not even attend the last tri-lateral meeting in Islamabad and that, discussions were held between Pakistan and Iran.
This is clear from a recent communiqu? by Iran?s state-owned gas company NIGEC to GAIL which read, ?Reference is made to the invitation letter of secretary ministry of petroleum and natural resources of Pakistan addressed to MS Srinivasan to have a trilateral meeting. Due to your absentia, we had a bilateral meeting with Pakistani side in Islamabad and agreed to hold the next trilateral meeting tentatively from 17-2I September, 2007, in Tehran. In this respect, we invite you with your technical experts and lawyers to have such meeting?.
