A senior Pakistani official underlined the importance of Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline, and said that the “project will help Islamabad to overcome” its energy crisis.
Governor of Pakistan’s Northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province Shaukatullah Khan made the remarks in a meeting with Iran’s Consul-General in Peshawar Hassan Darvishvand on Friday.
“I welcome the inauguration of the construction of the final phase of Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline and this project is vital for the people of Pakistan,” the Pakistani governor said.
The Iranian consul-general in Peshawar, for his part, said that the implementation of Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project has opened new horizons of cooperation between Iran and Pakistan.
Iran and Pakistan on officially inaugurated the construction phase of a gas pipeline project last month which is due to take Iran’s rich gas reserves to the energy-hungry South Asian nation.
The project kicked off in a ceremony attended by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari at the two countries’ shared border region in Iran’s Southeastern city of Chabahar.
The 2700-kilometer long pipeline was to supply gas for Pakistan and India which are suffering a lack of energy sources, but India has evaded talks. In 2011, Iran and Pakistan declared they would finalize the agreement bilaterally if India continued to be absent in the meeting.
According to the project proposal, the pipeline will begin from Iran’s Assalouyeh Energy Zone in the south and stretch over 1,100 km through Iran. In Pakistan, it will pass through Baluchistan and Sindh but officials now say the route may be changed if China agrees to the project.
