New Delhi - India is all set to sign an agreement on a 7.5-billion-dollar gas pipeline with Iran and Pakistan in the coming weeks, even as there are no signs of progress on its nuclear deal with United States owing to domestic political opposition, media reports said Monday. In an interview with the NDTV network, India's Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said an agreement on the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline was likely within the next four to five weeks.
"There were some minor problems which have been sorted out... Very soon we should be able to sign the agreement with Iran and Pakistan," he told the news channel on the margins of the meeting of the world energy ministers in Jeddah.
Deora, who held talks with his Iranian counterpart Gholam Hosein Nozari at the summit, said "some issues" on the pipeline with Pakistan were resolved.
The IPI project was first conceptualized by officials from India and Iran in 1989. The talks began in 1994, but were delayed by tensions between nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan and later disagreements over the cost of gas.
The development comes against the backdrop of India's ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coming under increasing pressure from its left-wing partners who have warned of withdrawing support to the government if it went ahead with the civilian nuclear deal with the US.
The left-wing parties, which oppose closer ties with Washington, have 59 members in the 543-member Indian Parliament.
The communists recently attacked the Congress party-led UPA for allegedly "dragging its feet" on the Iran pipeline project at the behest of the US and said the nuclear deal was "nothing but a cover to promote strategic ties with the US."
The US has promised as part of that agreement to provide India with access to civilian nuclear technology and nuclear fuel in exchange for international safeguards on India's civilian nuclear reactors.
New Delhi needs to complete an India-specific safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency to implement the agreement.
A crucial meeting of the UPA and its left-wing allies on the nuclear deal is scheduled on Wednesday and the country could face early elections, possibly by this winter, if the left-wing parties decide to withdraw their support.
Political analysts said the Congress party is fine-tuning its stance on the nuclear deal as it needs more time to bring soaring inflation and prices under control, limiting it's options to go for early elections.
The Congress has already suffered a string of defeats in key state elections at the hands of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the past few months.
