There is potential for a gas pipeline to achieve what bilateral diplomacy, international diplomacy and 'track two' diplomacy have not been able to achieve in the last 20 years; a first step towards indirect trade between what are now South Asia's nuclear neighbours. Pakistan has agreed to allow a pipeline carrying Iranian natural gas to traverse its soil to reach markets in India. This can be regarded by the imaginative as a fundamental development in regional politics, except that the media at large and India's in particular, has not given it the importance it would seem to deserve.
To begin with, the very consideration of this project is linked to a reviving Pakistan-Iran relationship, which had plummeted earlier due to the Taliban Afghanistan factor. The thaw began with General Pervez Musharraf's December visit to Tehran, with the Chief Executive particularly keen to discuss trade possibilities with Iran. Pakistan's trade deficit this year is expected to touch USD 1.6 billion, due some extent to the tripling of world oil prices. The unannounced conclusion of the men who run Islamabad was that cash-strapped Pakistan cannot afford the exclusive Afghan focus to define Pak-Iran relations.
While other arenas of trade will obviously pick up steam in the days ahead, the most significant outcome of Gen Musharraf's Tehran visit was actually a trade project where Pakistan only provides its territorial good offices. This was the long-mooted gas pipeline project to feed natural gas from the Iranian fields to the population centres and industries in North India. The Iranians have expressed pleasant surprise at how unusually efficient Islamabad's response has suddenly been.
Indeed, for a subject that is potentially such a minefield — for allowing India to benefit from a project that actually physically uses Pakistani space — there has been great speed and no dillydallying. The Iranians, at least, put this development to Gen Musharraf´s personal interest in the project, which got the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Petroleum activated.