March 11, 2013
BBC News

Pakistan-Iran Gas Pipeline Defies US

President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are inaugurating a controversial gas pipeline linking the two neighbours.

The US has warned that the project could incur sanctions connected with Iran's nuclear programme.

The long-delayed pipeline is seen in Pakistan as a way of alleviating the country's chronic energy shortages.

The work on the Iranian side is almost complete. Monday marks the start of construction in Pakistan.

A total of 780km (485 miles) of pipeline is due to be built in the country over the next two years. . . .

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"Energy Wars: The Destabilization of Baluchistan," The Wisdom Fund, July 12, 2009

Enver Masud, "Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India Agree to Support TAPI Pipeline," The Wisdom Fund, December 13, 2010

"U.S. Rejects Demands To Vacate Pakistan Drone Base," Reuters, June 30, 2011

[Chinese construction firms have almost completed a 335-km tarred road from Sost, a Pakistani frontier town on its border with China, to Gilgit, the capital of the Gilgit-Baltistan province. Expansion work is in progress on the rest of the 900-km road, to link the port to Pakistan's north-south Indus Highway, which will facilitate overland transport from Gwadar to China. It takes a merchant vessel over 20 days to cover the 10,000 km distance from the mouth of the Persian Gulf to Shanghai via the narrow Malacca straits. Gwadar will enable Chinese merchant ships to load cargo at Gwadar and sail to Europe via the Red Sea, saving 3,900 km.--Qaswar Abbas, "China heading stealthily towards its ambitious plan to safeguard its Persian Gulf route," India Today, March 8, 2013]