ASIA: Indian Oil Min pleased Ahmadinejad's meetings in New Delhi

Indian Oil Min pleased Ahmadinejad's meetings in New DelhiIndia's Oil and Gas Minister here Wednesday evaluated Indian President Pratibha Devisingh Patil meeting with IRI President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday as "quite excellent."

According to IRNA from New Delhi, Morli Diora added, "The visiting Iranian President also had a good meeting with India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in which the Indian Premier announced New Delhi's enthusiasm for fast implementation of Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline."

The Indian Oil Minister who was speaking with the press in New Delhi refrained from revealing details of Singh's Tuesday meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but reiterated, "The oil ministers of India, Pakistan, and Iran will meet in near future to lift the entire obstacles in the way of implementing the 4.7 billion dollar Peace Pipeline Project." India's PTI news agency, too, quoted informed officials here Wednesday as saying, "Keeping in mind the security conditions in Pakistan today, New Delhi insists that Iran would deliver the gas at India's border with Pakistan, not at Iran-Pakistan border, to India." According to those sources, India has also disagreed with Iran's proposal for inserting an article in the gas sales contract for periodical revisions over the natural gas price.

India insists that Iran would allocate a certain gas field, such as the South Pars Gas Field, to feeding the Iran-Pakistan-India Pipeline and that a third party would approve of such a field's total capacity.

The Indian sources said that the Iranian President refrained from getting involved in such details, asking the Indian officials to discuss the matters with Iran's Oil Minister.

Source: Islamic Republic News Agency

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