India is keen to partner the proposed multi-billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project and has promised to resist "all external pressures on the issue", Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said."Indian officials have voiced interest in the project and stated that no external power can influence them," Nozari said yesterday.Iran has sent a letter to Pakistan asserting that the export of gas to India through the pipeline is of paramount importance for the country, the minister told Mehr News Agency.The Indian Petroleum Minister Murli Deora is set to arrive in Pakistan on April 21 to hold talks on the transit fee to be paid to Islamabad on the $7 billion IPI project.Iran has accused the US, which is at loggerheads with Tehran over its nuclear programmes, of exerting pressure on India to withdraw from the project. Tehran insists its nuclear programme is focused on the peaceful production of energy, not the development of weapons as claimed by the US and many of its allies.Although Pakistan and Iran have finalised Gas Sales Purchase Agreement (GSPA) on the project, India stayed away from talks saying that it wanted to resolve the issue of transit fee first.The IPI project is a proposed 2,775 km pipeline to carry Iran's natural gas to Pakistan and India. The project, estimated to be completed in three to five years, is expected to benefit energy-starved India and Pakistan.
