Tehran, Jan. 22, 2010 (Hamsayeh.Net) - Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Petroleum Navid Qamar announced finalization of a major gas contract between Pakistan and Iran after meeting with Iranian oil officials,  yesterday.

 

The Pakistani official said Islamabad and Tehran are posed to sign an accord for the construction of a pipeline next week. The proposed pipeline is 2,775 km long and dubbed as the Peace Pipeline, connecting Iran-Pakistan and India. However, for the time being India is reluctant to join the contract because of New Delhi’s concerns over its safety and some unresolved border issues with Pakistan. 

 

The negotiations have been going on for many years involving Iran, Pakistan and India. Iran enormous gas reserves is ideally suited to supply massive amounts of gas to both Pakistan and India on long-term basis, thus helping ease the energy requirements of the two giant developing nations.

 

Also the United States as an outside player, fearing further economic developments of India and Pakistan as a direct threat to its post World War II global clout, has been working round the clock by using all possible means to prevent the deal to become a reality. Experts believe from the Western point of view, any additional progress alongside the remarkable developments in East Asia, especially China would be a direct threat to Western global hegemony. India and Pakistan with a combined population of nearly 1.5 billion could become the next Asian powerhouses only if they could have better access to inexpensive and long-term energy sources such as the natural gas.

 

In this way, not surprisingly, Washington’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Halbrook earlier held meetings with Pakistani officials trying to convince them to abandon the Peace Pipeline project. The special envoy told Pakistani officials that Washington would offer Pakistan other suppliers of natural gas. It is interesting to note that the United States itself is very much dependent on imported oil and gas from overseas, which makes one wonder how it could offer other nations secure energy resources from halfway around the world.

 

Despite all US’ efforts to stop the project, on March 20 last year, Pakistan approved Iran’s pricing formula and later signed a bilateral agreement with Tehran a few months later.