Iran Wants Pakistan to Seek European Assistance in Completing Gas Pipeline

Iran wants Pakistan to see assistance from European companies for completing the much delayed Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, a senior Iranian minister said.

“Iran’s petroleum inister Bijan [Namdar] Zanganeh recommended Islamabad to demand help from third-party companies for the completion and acceleration of the project on the Pakistani soil,” Ali Majedi, a deputy petroleum minister in charge of international affairs, told a press conference, reports Shana News.

The petroleum minister has proposed the presence of European companies in the pipeline project to Pakistanis. “It is even possible that these companies purchase gas from Iran as intermediary and sell it to the Pakistanis,” Majedi added.

Pakistani Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who recently visited Tehran, has welcomed this proposal, Shana quotes Majedi as saying.

Majedi said Iran expressed its discontent with Pakistan’s procrastination in completing the pipeline, adding that it would take nearly four years for Pakistan to build its side.

Iran has already built 907 kilometers of its 1,227-kilometer share of the pipeline. 

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