TEHRAN - A Pakistani oil official said the Pakistanis are determined in their decision to help implement the disputed project based on which Iran’s natural gas is planned to be carried to India via Pakistan.

A delegation from the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources of Pakistan is expected to visit Iran from March 11-13. They are going to discuss the ways to implement the agreements earlier reached between the two countries on the issue of transferring the natural gas from Iran to India via Pakistan through a pipeline, the Persian service of IRNA quoted Mohammad Ihsan-ul-Haq, a spokesman at the Pakistani oil ministry as saying on Friday.

He maintained that the agreements earlier concluded between the three countries in this regard were still forceful and no foreign pressure would be able to influence it.

He was obviously referring to the news on Pakistani media that in their upcoming talks, the U.S. President George W. Bush and the Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, in addition to the regional issues of joint interest, would also discuss the gas pipeline project. U.S. officials have time and again expressed their opposition over the development of the project also dubbed “Peace Pipeline”.

The pipeline project, preliminary costs of which have been estimated to hit between 3.5-4.5 billion dollars, would be 2,700 kilometers long.