NEW DELHI, May 3 (KUNA) -- India Thursday said that neither the United States nor any other country can put pressure on New Delhi on the proposed multi-billion dollar Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project.
"There is no question of the US or any other country interfering in India's internal affairs. I can assure the house there is no such fear and India cannot be pressurised," India's Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said in Lok Sabha (Lower House of Indian Parliament) at Delhi.
"We are going ahead with our discussions on the pipeline project with Iran and Pakistan," he said when asked whether US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had put any pressure on India on the tri-nation project.
On the security of the project within Pakistan, Deora said, "Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, during his visit to India last month, had himself guaranteed that there will be no problems in the project."
He said the Joint Working Group on pipeline between India and Pakistan had been meeting regularly and had last met in February. Indo-Pak technical sub-group also met last March and discussed transit fee and transportation cost for the pipeline. These meetings would continue, the Minister said.
The 2,135-km-long tri-nation gas pipeline would be built at a total cost of seven billion US dollars, he said.
Deora said the Indian government was also keen to import natural gas from Iran to meet energy requirements.
The minister said though there were American legal requirements under the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act of 1996, this was also not an issue.
