New Delhi: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will start his India tour on Tuesday. He is likely to discuss the longstanding plans for a pipeline to supply Iranian gas to India and Pakistan.
The three countries have been talking about the pipeline for years now.
Though all three parties have agreed in principle on financial issues, India had dropped out of the talks in mid-2007, saying it first wanted to resolve issues with Pakistan on transit fees.
He arrived in Pakistan on Monday for a brief visit in which the two countries were expected to discuss Afghanistan and a pipeline project opposed by the US.
Ahmadinejad is to meet with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani during the hours-long stopover on his way to Sri Lanka.
A key subject is expected to be the pipeline, which Pakistan and India are considering building to import natural gas from Iran.
The pipeline would run 2,615 kilometers (1,625 miles) from Iran to India through Pakistan and initially carry 60 million cubic meters (2,120 million cubic feet) of gas a day.
The proposed project has been hit by delays since Iran proposed it in the 1990s, mainly because of Indian concerns for the safety of sections of the pipeline that will run through Pakistan - India's rival for more than half a century.
Meanwhile, the US has tried to discourage India and Pakistan from any deal with Iran in the past because of Tehran's suspected ambitions to build nuclear arms.
(With AP inputs)
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