Certain Powers Seeking to Undermine Pakistan’s Ties with Iran: FM
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi warned of some world powers’ plots to undermine bilateral relations between Islamabad and Tehran and said the conspiracies will get nowhere nonetheless.
Some powers are seeking to undermine the relationship between Iran and Pakistan and use the most trivial issues and differences between the two countries to that aim, Qureshi said, according to local reports.
These powers regard Iran as a great danger to the region and believe they should block its power by any means, the Pakistani top diplomat added.
He went on to say, however, that attempts by the enemies of Iran and Pakistan will never get anywhere and the two countries have proven this in their bilateral talks at the highest level.
The comments came a few days after some Western media claimed that Pakistan has informed Iran of its inability to abide by an agreement to build a gas pipeline because of the US sanctions against Iran.
In another report, Arab News quoted Managing Director of Pakistan’s Inter State Gas Mobin Saulat as saying that “it is impossible to execute the IP (Iran-Pakistan) gas pipeline project because of US sanctions on Iran and we have conveyed it to them (Iran) in writing recently.”
Nonetheless, the Pakistani ambassador to Iran underlined that the report is groundless, as there is no video of Saulat’s comments anywhere.
Mobin Saulat has not made any remarks about the project, she emphasized.
The envoy also noted that a high-ranking Iranian delegation will soon visit Pakistan to discuss the implementation of the project with authorities in Islamabad.
Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, which stretches for 900 kilometers only in Iran, has been designed to help populous Pakistan overcome its growing energy needs.
Construction work on the Pakistani part of the pipeline was inaugurated in March 2013 and was planned to be completed within 22 months. But the work has still not begun after six years.
