Islamabad, June 10: Terming Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline contract purely as a commercial pact the Pakistan foreign office spokesman Abdul Basit on Thursday said the agreement signed by the two countries recently was beyond the purview of the limitations being imposed on Iran by the United Nations Security Council.
 “As far as the Gas Pipeline Project is concerned this is purely a commercial agreement that is beyond the purview of the limitations,” Basit said during a weekly press briefing here.
 He said that there were 37 operative paragraphs of the resolution related to the sanctions against Iran’s nuclear and Ballistic Missile program and these would have no bearing upon the project whatsoever.
 Referring to the settlement of Iran’s nuclear issue, he said, “Pakistan has always been for negotiated settlement of the issues surrounding Iran’s nuclear program.”
 To a query about Israel’s nuclear program he said that during an international conference held in New York recently there was a resolution calling for a nuclear-free zone (Middle East) and “I think international community needs to act upon the said resolution to achieve the objective”.
 When asked about American state department official’s statement that instead of Kashmir issue it would be the issue of terrorism that would figure on top of the agenda on the 15th July meeting the foreign office spokesperson said that trust-deficit, which existed between the two countries was not a new phenomena and “It is there for decades due to many reasons”.
 He however added that there was a dire need to bridge this trust-deficit to move forward positively. “This is what we intend to do when the foreign ministers of our two countries would be meeting in Islamabad next month”, he added.

Lastupdate on : Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:00:00 IST