ISLAMABAD: Federal Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar has claimed that the Government of Pakistan will not abandon the Pak-Iran gas pipeline project under the US pressure but it was actually Iran which had backed out of financing the project, despite an earlier promise.
Speaking in Capital Talk on Geo News with Hamid Mir on Wednesday night, Ishaq Dar said that he had recently met the Iranian finance minister on the sidelines of the World Bank and IMF meetings in the US. He told his Iranian counterpart that Iran had promised to provide $500 million for the Pak-Iran gas pipeline project.
The Iranian finance minister responded in clear words that his government was suffering from economic crisis and they were not in a position to finance the project.Dar said he even requested the US officials not to oppose the Pak-Iran gas pipeline project because now the US was trying to improve its relations with Iran.
He said Pakistan was still committed to the project but now the Iranians had backed out. He said he could not carry forward this project single-handedly due to the shortage of finances.Responding to another question, he said that the Ministry of Finance was ready to provide all funds to the ECP for the coming local bodies elections.
He said that his ministry informed the ECP in writing a few days back that it would give Rs6 billion to the ECP for the election.Dar also said that a proposal was given to him on Wednesday afternoon to ban the export of tomatoes to control the prices but he refused to do so just because it would help the Punjab only.
He said that these days the Punjab was facing a shortage of tomatoes and that was why the prices were going up but the tomato crop of Sindh, the KP and Balochistan was ready now.“We do not want to minimise the profit of growers from three provinces just for the benefit of the Punjab,” he said.
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