Himalayan News Service

New Delhi, March 19:

Pakistan has offered transit facilities for natural gas imports by India from Turkmenistan and Qatar. Pakistan can consider natural gas imports through a pipeline for both domestic consumption and for India from sources other than Iran, Pakistan trade minister Humayun A Khan said. “India, I believe, has had apprehensions in the past. We can consider gas from Turkmenistan and also through under-sea pipeline from Qatar,” said the minister, here to attend a meeting of the group of group of 20 developing countries. “We are studying both options of imports and we have no objections in the gas passing through to India,” Khan said.

The Pakistan minister, however, declined comment on the issue of security raised on Tuesday by US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice on India’s proposal to import gas from Iran, via pipeline passing through Pakistan.

“I was not there in Islamabad when the US secretary of state was in Islamabad. It would not be proper on my part to comment on what she said. But yes, India has had apprehensions in the past,” the trade minister said. Rice had conveyed Washington’s concern over a pact between India and Pakistan to go ahead with the $4.5 billion pipeline from Iran when she was on an official visit here as part of her six-nation Asian tour. “I think that our views concerning Iran are very well known by this time. We have communicated to the Indian government our concerns about the gas pipeline cooperation between Iran and India,” Rice had told reporters here. But India made it clear that it will go ahead with the pipeline despite concerns expressed by the US. “All relevant issues will be looked at and then we will arrive at a conclusion,” India’s petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said.