Pakistan sticks to Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline: Gilani

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani asserted on Saturday that Pakistan would make the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, while speaking to the journalists in Karachi.
Pakistan is currently facing mounting pressure from the US to shelve the Iran pipeline project, while Pakistan and Iran have already signed a sovereign-guarantee agreement on the project.
The prime minister said that a rise in oil prices in Pakistan was due to a rise in the international prices and the global recession, and gave his assurance that the speaker had formed a committee on the issue and will hold talks with the finance minister.
He also commented on the US Congressman’s resolution in the House on the Balochistan issue, and said that it was against the sovereignty of the country. “We strongly condemn the US Congressman’s move,” he said.
In view of the on-going trilateral meeting between Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, Gilani said it was “extremely important” for the stability of the region that all the neighbouring countries were in a good relationship with each other.
“We want to have good relations with all our neighbours, be it China, Afghanistan, Iran or India,” he added.
A resolution, on Friday, sponsored by Rohrabacher and two fellow Republicans said the Baluchi people “have the right to self-determination and to their own sovereign country, and they should be afforded the opportunity to choose their own status.”
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar described it as an “isolated move by a few individuals.”
“It was aimed to create distrust between the peoples of the two countries,” she said in a statement.
She added that “this latest tendentious move will not be allowed to sail through the House by a vast majority of US Congressmen who continued to support friendly relations between the two countries.”