India bucks US pressure on Iran pipeline deal

Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said March 26 that India intends to go ahead with a multi-billion-dollar gas pipeline from Iran via Pakistan despite objections from the US. “Talks on this pipeline are going on,” Mukherjee said in an interview with the NDTV news network. “When I was in Iran, I had categorically mentioned that we are interested in having this pipeline.” He added: “Now negotiations are going on about the prices.” (AFP, March 26)

As we have noted, the recent US-India nuclear technology deal was nearly an explicit bribe to induce India to drop the Iran pipeline plan.

See our last posts on India, Iran and the Eurasian pipeline wars.