The United States of America (USA) on Friday once again expressed reservations on Pak-Iran gas pipeline project and hoped that Pakistan would not go in a direction that would cause US sanctions to impose sanctions on it.
Addressing a press conference in Washington,, spokeswoman for the State Department, Victoria Nuland said that “US was making efforts to help resolve energy crisis in Pakistan and to advance Mangla and Jamshoro power plants”.
She said that pakistan’s gas pipeline accord with Iran is against UN sanctions. “Just to be absolutely clear again, if this deal is finalized for a proposed Iran-Pakistan pipeline, it would raise serious concerns under our Iran Sanctions Act. We’ve made that absolutely clear to our Pakistani counterparts. And just to say again that Iran has proven again and again that it is not a reliable partner” she emphasised.
The spokeswoman admitted that Pakistan has a lot of energy requirements and the US is working with Pakistan, in close partnership, on other, better ways to meet those needs, through the TAPI pipeline, by supporting large-scale energy projects like the 900-megawatt power grid by 2013, or by renovating power plants in Tarbela and Mangla Dams, modernizing the thermal power plants in Guddu, and Muzafaragarh.
She said the US is also assisting in building new dams at Satpara and Gomal Zam. She was of the opinion that this was the right direction for Pakistan and the international community was prepared to be supportive for these projects.