New Delhi: India has put off talks with Pakistan till elections there to resolve transit fee issue that poses hurdles to the implementation of the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.

Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, on an invitation from his Pakistani counterpart Ahsan Ullah Khan, was to lead a high- level delegation for talks in Islamabad on February 7-8 but was asked to abort the trip till a new government is installed in Pakistan after the February 18 elections, sources said.

Pakistan's demand for a transit fee for allowing passage of Iranian gas to India on top of transportation charges for wheeling the fuel through a 1,035-km pipeline segment in that country had put a pause on negotiations on the IPI pipeline, with New Delhi boycotting trilateral meetings on the issue since July 2007.

Petroleum Secretary M S Srinivasan, ONGC Chairman R S Sharma, GAIL Chairman U D Choubey and IOC Chairman Sarthak Behuria were to accompany Deora on the visit to Islamabad that was supposed to lay grounds for the trilateral meeting called by Iran on February 12-13 in Tehran to seal the pipeline deal.

Sources said since the Pakistan visit was off, the Tehran meet would also not take place. Deora may visit Islamabad in early March to resolve the transit fee issue and later mount a delegation to Tehran for finalisation of IPI pipeline.

During the past seven months, Pakistan has concluded with Iran negotiations on all technical and commercial aspects of gas sales but could not sign a bilateral gas import deal as Tehran insists on joining of the politically stable India, which has high demand, for the project to take off.

Source : PTI