A day after India sought to revive talks on the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) natural gas pipeline project, Pakistan says it will guarantee safety of the pipeline and may give New Delhi an equity stake in the section passing through its territory as additional surety of safe delivery of the fuel.

""We (the State of Pakistan) will stand guarantee for safe delivery of gas (at Pakistan-India border),"" Mohammed Chaudhry Ejaz, Additional Secretary in Pakistan's Petroleum Ministry, told Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency in an interview in the Mexican resort city of Cancun, and insisting the agreements have ""in-built"" mechanism to accommodate India's concerns should it decide to join the project.
Following a meeting between Indian Petroleum Minister Murli Deora and Iran's Deputy Minister for International Affairs H Noghrehkar Shirazi on the sidelines of the 12th International Energy Forum, Sunil Jain, Joint Secretary (International Co-operation), said New Delhi was ready to hold talks, and have proposed a meeting of the Joint Working Group (of the two countries) on the pipeline project.
He added that New Delhi was waiting for Tehran to decide on the dates.
India's offer of talks came after Iran and Pakistan, having waited for long for India to join the $7.5-billion project, went ahead to sign a bilateral agreement for laying the natural gas pipeline across the two countries.
(Source: RTT News)