Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

What I am getting is Afghanistan will be used to possibly strengthen the U.S. presence in Central Asia and Pakistan probably because it is located on the Gulf of Oman will be used to attack Iran.

Reference:
"There exists a point of view that the U.S. could take advantage of this and, under the pretext of the operation in Afghanistan, could strengthen their military presence in Central Asia," he said. "We hope that the American leadership will act on this issue in accordance with the promises made: that this military presence will be tied with the anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan. And when this threat is liquidated, the necessity of the U.S. military presence in Central Asia will be no more."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-ivanov18jul18,1,4945402.story?coll=la-headlines-....

An amphibious attack has been targeted against Iran from the Arabian Sea, with a provocative US blockade in the Gulf of Oman to choke Iran’s sea lanes of communications.
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Pakistan has been ‘occupied’ by the United States for the purpose of invading Iran among other things. Pakistan would be the base for mounting massive air reconnaissance and surveillance of Iran.
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For the United States to use Pakistan, a country that borders China, as a base will never do.

There is a determined fight underway for Pakistan’s favor.

USD three billion for five years has been promised by President George W Bush to his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf for his cooperation against the al-Qaeda and Taliban and his promise to introduce a 'pseudo' democracy in due course. http://sify.com/news_info/fullstory.php?id=13523503.

In a countermove China is taking measures to secure major influence over Pakistan and thus prevent the likelihood of the U.S. using Pakistan as a base.

Chinese overall investment in Pakistan has exceeded over dollar 4 billion, with gradual improvement in the bilateral trade.
http://www.paknews.com/main.php?id=3&date1=2004-07-04

Moreover China has just welcomed Pakistan's inclusion in ARF and China has also assured its support to Pakistan for joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
http://www.paknews.com/top.php?id=1&date1=2004-04-10


Iran not to be left out has proposed an Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline and its lucrative transit fees.


‘Step on the gas’

In letter to PM, Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar proposes: we need pipeline through Pak, let dialogue begin even if it’s a ‘conversation without commitments’



AMITAV RANJAN

Posted online: Sunday, July 18, 2004 at 0121 hours IST

NEW DELHI, JULY 17: Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar is trying to sell the most ambitious of projects with the catchiest of phrases as a starting point.

Picture this: Three massive pipelines criss-crossing countries and carrying natural gas to India from distant lands. The hitch seems to be that two of these pipelines — from Iran and Central Asia — will have to come overland, through Pakistan, a neighbour that India has traditionally been nervous about. The third, it is proposed, will run from Myanmar, through Bangladesh.



Similar proposals have been made in the past but they died because of security concerns involving Pakistan. Now Aiyar has written to the Prime Minister suggesting a novel approach. He calls it “conversation without commitments’’.

Aiyar wrote: “With respect to the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, the Iranian Oil Minister has conveyed to me, through his Ambassador, an informal suggestion for ’conversation without commitment’ between the Petroleum Ministers of these three countries. I discussed this with the External Affairs Minister, Shri K. Natwar Singh, who is himself favourably inclined but asked me to first take this up with you.”

Aiyar has backed up his proposal with an overview of the energy situation to show just how pressing the need for radical solutions is.

He has pointed out that while India’s crude oil production will rise no more than 50 million tonnes over the next two years, its requirement could touch 300 million tonnes if it is to sustain a 7-8 per cent growth in GDP.

The answer, he reasons, would be to access gas wherever possible. Domestically, the needs cannot be met as the production is stuck at 90 million standard cubic metres of gas per day, while the requirement has already crossed 120 million cubic metres. Twenty years down the road, the requirement could touch 391 million cubic metres. “It would be in our larger national interest to encourage this demand to grow to lower the appetite for crude,” the letter says.

In fact, to push the proposal forward, Aiyar is willing to discard even the oft-trotted South Block line — that if Pakistan is interested in seeing the pipeline running through its land, it must grant most-favoured nation status to imports from India.

“Important, indeed crucial as these issues are to our economy, the gains from these pale in comparison to the massive gains which our country would secure from accessing Iranian gas through Pakistan.” he has argued.

The vision may be grand, but given the interests of the different nations involved, Aiyar probably realises that reconciling them all will not be easy.

That is where the novel approach of starting talks without any firm commitments comes in. Apart from having such conversations with pakistan and Iran, he has suggested starting talks on similar lines with Bangladesh and Myanmar on the one hand and Turkmenistan and Afghanistan on the other. In the long run, if the plan works out, he maps out an even more enchanting vision.

“If we are able to link up a pipeline through Pakistan with a pipeline through Bangladesh, not only would we have a national grid for international gas, our two recalcitrant neighbours might be drawn into a network of South Asian cooperation.”


http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=51268