Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said Tuesday his country will not back off from building a much-delayed gas pipeline with Iran.
“We will not let anyone use their veto,” Dar said at a press briefing Tuesday, without naming the United States.
Pakistan and Iran signed a Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement in June of 2009 for a pipeline that would supply 750 million to 1,000 million cubic feet per day of gas to energy-starved Pakistan from Iran's South Pars Field.
While Iran claimed in 2011 that it had completed its side of the pipeline, construction delays continue on the Pakistani side, primarily for fear of invoking U.S. sanctions.
The Biden administration has repeatedly said it does not support the Pakistan-Iran pipeline as Tehran is under U.S. sanctions for its nuclear program.
“The government will decide what, when, and how to do anything based on Pakistan’s interests. It cannot be dictated to us,” Pakistan’s foreign minister told reporters in Islamabad.
In February, Pakistan’s outgoing caretaker government approved building a small patch of the pipeline from the Iranian border into Pakistani territory to avoid billions of dollars in penalties for project delays.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government, which took office in March, has not begun construction on the project.
The pipeline received only a passing mention in a lengthy joint statement issued at the end of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to Pakistan in late April, prompting speculation the project was not on track.
“We have to watch our interest. We have to look at our commitments,” Dar said, rejecting the notion Pakistan was delaying the project under U.S. pressure. However, he conceded the pipeline is “an issue that is quite complicated.”
After Raisi’s visit in which both sides agreed to boost bilateral trade to $10 billion dollars, the U.S. State Department warned, yet again, that Islamabad could face trouble for doing business with Tehran.
“Broadly we advise anyone considering business deals with Iran to be aware of the potential risk of sanctions,” Vedant Patel, State Department deputy spokesperson, said during a briefing last month.
Energy-starved and cash-strapped, the South Asian nation of some 240 million people needs cheap fuel from its neighbor. Pakistan currently meets much of its needs with expensive oil and gas imports from Gulf countries.
Iran’s arch-rival Saudi Arabia, on whom Pakistan relies heavily for financial support, is also widely believed to be opposed to the pipeline.
Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, spokesperson of Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, told media in late April that Islamabad was in talks with Washington to address concerns surrounding the pipeline.
“We have noted some statements have been made by the United States. We are also engaged with the United States and discussed the various aspects of Pakistan's energy needs,” Baloch said at a weekly press briefing.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs contended in the past that Islamabad does not need a sanctions waiver from Washington to build the pipeline with Tehran.
However, experts say sanctions will kick in once gas is pumped.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Energy have not confirmed if Islamabad has applied for a sanctions waiver from Washington.
Donald Lu, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, told a Congressional hearing in March that Pakistan had not requested the waiver to purchase Iranian gas.
