Press Trust of India / Washington Feb 18, 2012, 10:12 IST
The proposed multi-billion gas pipeline between Iran and Pakistan is a bad idea, a top US official today said, a day after Islamabad vowed to progress on the ambitious project whose final destination is expected to be India, but New Delhi so far has remain out of it.
"We've seen this discussion about this proposed pipeline go on for a long time, and there have been many fits and starts. We think it's a bad idea; we've made that clear," State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters
The United States, she said, will not speculate where this project is headed to."I'm not going to speculate where this is going to go," she said.
"If in fact the pipeline does go forward, and there've been a lot of false starts and backing and forthing on that, we have issues of concern and we've been very clear about those with the Government of Pakistan," Nuland said in response to a question.
The Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline aims to export a daily amount of 21.5 million cubic meters (or 8.7 billion cubic meters per year) of the Iranian natural gas to Pakistan.
Maximum daily gas transfer capacity of the 56-inch pipeline which runs over 900 km of Iran's soil from Asalouyeh in Bushehr Province to the city of Iranshahr in Sistan and Balochistan Province has been given at 110 million cubic meters. Iran has already constructed more than 900 kilometers of the pipeline on its soil.
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari yesterday said that his country's ties with Iran will not be "undermined" by any international pressure and Islamabad is determined to forge ahead with projects with Tehran, including the gas pipeline.
Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline is certainly not in our national interest due to strategic geographical and economic reasons. The pricing of gas as contemplated is also not in our interest. This gas pipe line will also be a challenge to our energy security. India is blessed with plenty of sunshine. We must plan for massive expansion of solar energy which has the potential of real wealth creation along with providing us the energy security. Development of alternate energy like solar & wind along with hydro electricity can be real long term savior for our development needs. There is no need to take risk for going for energy source which have inherent risks. China is planning to develop 4GW of solar electric power during the year 2012. Nothing prevents us to undertake an ambitious solar plan. I hope our political class will take right decisions.
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