Tehran asks Islamabad to get US waiver

Islamabad : Tehran has asked Islamabad to get waiver from the US sanctions like India did to implement the long delayed Iran-Pakistan gas line project.

Islamabad has been communicated that there exist no sanctions particularly on gas transactions, so it should come forward and start working for implementing the IP gas line.

A four-member Iranian delegation communicated this in a latest official engagement held on last Monday and Tuesday with top mandarins of Petroleum Division. The Iranian team argued that sanctions were imposed on its oil related business and not on gas. The Iranian team asked authorities to strive to get waiver from the US for implementing the IP gas line project if Pakistan considered that US sanctions were also active on gas related transactions.

The Iranian side in favour of its arguments also said India had managed the waiver and Pakistan must follow suit.

The Petroleum Division’s officials were of view that the sanctions were active on Iran’s all kind of transactions.

However, a law firm of Ahmer Bilal Sufi has been tasked with assessing if the sanctions are active on gas transactions or not. Petroleum Division spok-esman Sher Afghan confirmed official engagement with the Iranian officials saying Iran had its own view point on the US sanctions on gas business that was different from Pakistan’s.

He also confirmed that the law firm had been asked to give its opinion on the issue.

When contacted, Sufi confirmed that his law firm had been tasked with analysing whether or not the US sanctions imposed on Iran were active on gas business too between the two countries. Sufi said his firm had starting working on it and will come up with a professional opinion [on it] after two months. He said there were three kinds of sanctions imposed by the UN, the US and the EU. He said the EU sanctions had turned mild, but still there were some selected parameters. “However, we need to examine all the sanctions’ impact and their nature and will come up with a professional opinion on the issue.”