AFP: Indian foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee is set to travel to Iran for a two-day visit next week, the India foreign ministry said Thursday. NEW DELHI, Feb 1, 2007 (AFP) – Indian foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee is set to travel to Iran for a two-day visit next week, the India foreign ministry said Thursday.
“Mukherjee’s visit is part of the regular process of high-level exchanges between the two countries,” a statement said, adding that the visit was to begin Tuesday.
Iran’s foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki visited India in November.
Mukherjee will meet with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other senior officials during the visit, the statement said.
The Indian foreign minister’s trip follows close on the heels of the visit by an Indian team to Tehran to negotiate with Iran and Pakistan the price of gas via a proposed a multi-billion dollar pipeline.
Talks on the proposed multi-billion-dollar pipeline — to supply Iranian gas to India through a 2,600-kilometre (1,600-mile) pipeline via Pakistan — began in 1994.
Discussions are stalled over pricing, with Tehran saying New Delhi and Islamabad were unwilling to pay the asking price.
The two nations have long enjoyed warm relations but India’s ties with Tehran have suffered after it sided with the West in voting against Iran’s nuclear programme at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
