**India, Pakistan devise strategy on IPI to avoid US sanctions **
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Staff Report
NEW DELHI: India and Pakistan have reportedly agreed to a tactical strategy of accessing Iranian gas without inviting sanctions from the United States. Both countries are now trying to wriggle out of the consortium that was to be formed for laying the tri-nation pipeline. The perspective gaining momentum in all three countries is that each country should lay the pipeline in their own territories, with the gas to be bought at their borders.
Sources here said this would mean that neither India nor Pakistan would “technically” invest in Iran, which could mean the imposition of sanctions by the US. The US has adopted a threatening posture, repeatedly asking both countries to abandon their plans of buying gas from Iran. The approach, originally suggested by India over a year ago, would mean that Iran would construct its own pipeline up to the Pakistan border and India and Pakistan would lay their own pipelines.
The strategy would also help India in buying gas at its border with Pakistan in the Barmer district of Rajasthan while leaving the remaining negotiations to Iran and Pakistan. This poses an escape route to cool down the US at the earlier hawkish posture of Delhi that maintained that the US could not dictate terms to India on its gas purchases, essential for energy security. …
Gobsmacked really. Hind-Pak working together on something other than Kashmir for a change???