Iran Meets Pakistan Over IPI Pipeline Project

This story links back to the previous post here. Now we get to see how Pakistan plays into all this.

clipped from www.hindu.com Islamabad, (PTI): Iranian Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, on Friday met his Pakistani counterpart Inam-ul Haque and both the leaders reviewed progress in the multi-billion dollar gas pipeline project, in which India is the third party. The two foreign ministers reviewed progress in talks about the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, officials said. Recently, Iran and Pakistan held talks in Tehran, without India's participation, to finalise crucial agreements for the project. Mottaki also met President Musharraf who called for expediting work on the gas pipeline project. Musharraf, during meeting with Mottaki, backed Iran's efforts to make peaceful use of atomic energy and opposed the use of force to resolve the issue of its nuclear programme.

US-Pakistan Policy Post Bhutto

Council on Foreign Relations put out an analysis of the rippling effect of the death of Bhutto towards US-Pakistan relations . Highlights:

clipped from www.cfr.org Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official and key South Asia policymaker in the 1990s, told CFR.org he believes Bhutto’s assassination was intended to destabilize Pakistan. “Her death brutally exposes how little success Pervez Musharraf has had in cracking down on the jihadists,” writes CFR Senior Fellow Max Boot in Commentary’s blog. “They have only grown stronger on his watch.” The U.S. Congress, too, has questioned the effectiveness of nearly $10 billion in aid to Musharraf in the war against terrorism. Last week, it imposed new restrictions (AP) on U.S. assistance to Pakistan. According to Manjeet Kripalani, BusinessWeek’s Bombay bureau chief, U.S. influence in the country is likely to diminish. “Bush's continued focus on extremists in Pakistan, rather than on reform of the Pakistani military, is likely to create more muddled policy,” she writes.