Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinijad inaugurated construction work of a long-delayed $7.5 billion gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan.
The inauguration ceremony of gas pipeline which will pass through Pakistan’s restive Baluchistan province was held in the Iranian border city of Chabahar. Presidents of both states came with delegations of ministers and top officials as well as representatives of several Arab states.
The work on the Iranian side is almost complete and Monday saw the construction work start on the Pakistani side. A total of 780 km of pipeline is to be built in Pakistan by December 2014. Tehran has agreed to lend Islamabad $500 million, a third of the estimated $1.5 billion cost of the Pakistani section of the pipeline.
Ahmadinejad said that work on the new section of the pipeline was going ahead despite US sanctions against Iran’s oil and gas sector.
Dubbed the “peace pipeline”, talks on the project which was initially intended to carry gas on to India began in 1994. New Delhi pulled out in 2009 just a year after it signed a nuclear deal with Washington.
The project prompted several warnings of sanctions from the US. Washington says the pipeline would enable Tehran to sell more gas, undermining efforts to step up pressure over its nuclear activities.
But blackouts and power shortages becoming a pressing issue in Pakistan, the outgoing government insists it will not bow to pressure.
Monday’s ceremony came just days ahead of the five-year term of the ruling Pakistan Peoples party’s government expiring with elections scheduled in May.
No comments:
Post a Comment