Iran has refused to accept the force majeure notice served to it by Pakistan to suspend the work on the multibillion-dollar Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline project.
Simply put, through the notice Pakistan had expressed its inability to pursue the project as long as the US sanctions on Iran remain in place or Washington tacitly green-lights Islamabad to go ahead with the project that has been in cold storage for almost a decade despite acute energy shortages in the South Asian nation of 240 million.
During a news conference, former State Minister for Petroleum Musadik Malik said Pakistan had issued a force majeure notice to Iran under the Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) that Tehran did not accept and granted two five-year extensions to meet the obligations of the IP project.
The state minister insisted that Pakistan had issued the forced majeure notice “10 years ago” that Iran had refused to accept.
He categorically denied the written answer recently given in the National Assembly that Pakistan had issued the forced majeure notice right now, terming it factually “incorrect”.
