Stepping up its diplomacy a month ahead of the second crucial vote in Vienna, Tehran has invited New Delhi for a second meeting on the proposed India-Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project.The Ministry of External Affairs has cleared the delegation to attend the Joint Working Group meeting on October 24. A sight-seeing trip to Isfahan is planned for the next day.The Iranian invitation, from Deputy Minister Mohammad Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian, comes the day US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, speaking in New York, applauded New Delhi’s stand vote on Tehran’s nuclear programme at the IAEA as ‘‘a dramatic example of where it stands on the critical effort to prevent a theocratic Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.’’India and Iran have a pact under which India will import 5 million tonnes of LNG per annum for 25 years, tied to Iran giving equity to India in Yadavaran and Juffeyr oil and gas blocks. Iran, Pakistan and India are currently engaged in bilateral talks among themselves to work out the modalities of the project.
