Iran's foreign minister in India for pipeline talks
Posted: 16 November 2009 1501 hrs

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NEW DELHI: Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki arrived in New Delhi on Monday for talks on a stalled trans-national gas pipeline and a possible Indian prime ministerial visit to Iran, officials said.

Mottaki will meet India's Vice President Hamid Ansari, Premier Manmohan Singh and Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna on Monday during a two-day visit, an Indian foreign ministry statement said.

Talks with Indian leaders will cover "bilateral, regional and international issues", an Iranian embassy official said without elaborating.

An Indian official said talks between Krishna and Mottaki would cover the much-delayed 7.5-billion-dollar gas pipeline project, that was first mooted in 1994.

The project, if completed, would carry gas from Iran to Pakistan and then India.

But India, which has a tense and occasionally openly hostile relationship with Pakistan, withdrew last year from the talks because of repeated disputes about prices and transit fees.

The Indian official declined to comment on recent domestic news reports that Mottaki could be carrying new proposals to kickstart the pipeline talks, but added both sides might discuss a visit by Singh to Tehran.

Mottaki's visit here comes as the UN's atomic watchdog is to unveil on Monday its latest report on Iran's disputed nuclear drive with pressure mounting on Tehran to respond to a UN-brokered offer to end the standoff.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report will take stock of Iran's uranium enrichment activities in spite of international sanctions and detail findings from an October visit to a previously secret atomic site at Qom.

The West suspects Tehran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon under cover of its civilian nuclear energy programme. Iran vehemently denies the claims while Russia has said there is no evidence to support the accusations.

New Delhi, which twice voted against Tehran at meetings of the IAEA board, has said it is against the use of military force against Iran, but added it is against the emergence of another nuclear power in its neighbourhood.


- AFP/so