Sunday, January 17, 2016

IP Pipeline blocked again by US intransigence: stupid, harmful to the national interest of all concerned

No US or English news outlet reports on the effect of implementation of the Iran Nuclear Deal on the IP Pipeline and I don't know why.

One Iranian outlet, PessTV reported a story that was repeated by one Pakistani newspaper. Eurasian Review carried the most complete report. Eurasian Review is a New Work political risk consultancy, judged reliable and cautions.

One could reasonably hope that the Iran Nuclear deal would put an en o the doomed US attempts to prevent Iran from exporting energy. That seems not to be the case. Stupid and cruel, and counterproductive!

Eurasian Review

A Journal of Analysis and News

Iran Responds To Pakistani ‘Sanctions’ By Threatening Legal Action Over Unfinished Gas Pipeline

Locations of Iran (green) and Pakistan. Source: Wikipedia Commons.

BY AL BAWABA NEWS JANUARY 9, 2016

A senior Iranian official has said that Tehran will take action should Pakistan fail to meet its obligations with regard to the construction of a pipeline for receiving Iran’s natural gas.

“Iran has taken plenty of measures with regard to gas exports to Pakistan and has already laid out a major part of the pipelines as far as the Pakistani borders,” Ali-Reza Kameli, CEO of National Iranian Gas Exports Company, said.

“It would be natural that every country would think about the interests of its own people. Therefore, if Pakistan’s action harms our interests we will definitely act in line with terms of the contract,” Iranian petroleum ministry’s official monthly Iran Petroleum quoted Kameli as saying.

He complained that Pakistan has not taken “any specific action with regard to the construction of 780 kilometers of gas pipeline on its soil under the pretext of sanctions on Iran.”

“Therefore, the project has been held in abeyance…In every contract, penalties are envisaged for non-compliance with obligations, but Iran does not like to enter the phase of penalties vis-à-vis its neighboring country with which it has friendly ties,” said Kameli.

Iran plans to deliver 21.5 mcm/d of gas to Pakistan.

Iran looks on course to emerge from sanctions under a July 2015 nuclear deal.

However, Islamabad was dragging its feet even before the West imposed new sanctions on Tehran in 2012.

The US has long pressed Pakistani officials against going for the pipeline, promoting Turkmen over Iranian natural gas even though the route requires the extra mile of more than 700 km across volatile regions in Afghanistan.

The energy crisis in Pakistan which suffers about 12 hours of power cuts a day has worsened in recent years amid 4,000 megawatts of electricity shortfall.

Iran has completed its part of the gas pipeline project with more than $2 billion of investment but Pakistan has fallen behind the target to take gas deliveries in the winter of 2014.

Contractually, Pakistan has to pay steep fines to Iran for failing to build and operate its section of the pipeline by the winter of 2014.

For more on the IP Pipeline, see

A chance for leverage by Balochi and Uighurs, those willing to die for freedom as they define freedom

Oil out of Iran and the shameful but real thrust for it

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

The Nation of Baluchistan blooms on the dessert air, perhaps

Some 1,500,000 Balochi live in Iran, as a result of an agreement between Britain and Iran in the mid-19th Century. They live mostly in the Sistan and Baluchistan Province in Southern Iran, Iran's poorest and most neglected province. They are mostly Sunni in Shia Iran and are mistreated by Iranians.

Around 400,000 Balochi live in Afghanistan, a consequence of the insensitive Durand Line dividing he Pashtun people in 1893. The Baloch people hav customs compatible with the Pashtun the live at peace with them. The Afghan Baloch are are now at war with the United States. The live mainly in the Afghanistan provinces of Nimroz, Helmand, Kandahar, and Farah, where the United States' "surge" took place and from whence the United States drones Balochi living in North Balochistan, who, in turn, are said to plot against the United States.

At least 13,000,000 Balochi live in the Baluchistan Province of Pakistan They make up about 5 % of Pakistan's population. They are mistreated by the Oxford-educated, English-speaking Rulers of Pakistan who are predominately Punjabi.

The Pashtun and the Balochi have similar cultural traditions and

live at peace with one another.

Many Balochi, but perhaps not a majority of them, agitate for the Nation of Baluchistan which would be made of Balochi living in Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. . .

. . . and being poor have had little leverage to secure either a Nation or a better life for themselves.

The Baloch now have some leverage.

Pakistan needs natural gas and needs it badly.

Iran, its neighbor to the East, has the World's largest natural gas field, , badly needs to export it, and Pakistan has signed agreements for the Iran-Pakistan Pipeline. The IP Pipeline, if completed, would satisfy Pakistan's energy needs, and perhaps India's and China's. It would run through Balochi territory.

To the North, above Afghanistan, Turkmenistan has the World's' second largest natural gas fields (third, if Russia's is counted). The Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India Pipeline, TAP or TAPI, if completed, would supply all of Pakistan's energy needs, and also reach India and China. It would run through Baluchi territory.

The IP Pipeline is supported by Iran and the previous Pakistan administration. It is opposed by the United Staates with all the instruments of power at its disposal, save War; and by the Horrible Saudi. The newly-elected president of Pakistan is close to the Saudi, and seems intent on renegotiating the US incursions on Pakistan territory. The fate of the IP Pipeline is unknown yet.

The TAPI pipeline is supported by Pakistan, and the United States supports it as an alternative to the IP Pipeline, even though Turkmenistan is ruled by Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov, President for Life, a holdover from the Soviet rea with a wretched human rights record.. The TAPI Pipeline must cross Persian-specking Tajiks in Hera;, Afghan Pashtun and Balochi in Kandahar; and the Baluchi in Pakistan. It must cross the especially active region of Quetta. That presents negotiating challenges, milady stated.

An organized Balochi could block either pipeline, or at l sabotage either. It is uncertain whether there is a group in Baluchistan sufficiently organized to force concessions from either Iran or Pakistan.

The prospect of organized opposition to Iranian or Pakistani despotism is slim, given Islamabad's and Tehran's inhumane repression (see The Baloch people have a right to self-determination), and there is some reason for optimism despite persecution.

For a thoughtful look at Baloch prospects, see Baloch Nationalism and the Geopolitics of Energy Resources: The Changing Context of Separatism in Pakistan,Strategic Studies Institutie, United States Army Waar College.

IMAGES OF BALOCHISTAN

Tourists don't go to Balochistan areas often, so most of the images posted on line are of violence, and that is not typical of the area. The Baloch are a tribal people and I do not possess any characteristic that would fit tribal mores. Within the communities of the Baloch, there is much to admire, including the ability to survive in a harsh land. See, e.g., here.

Baloch in Pakistan:

Quetta in the North, the capital of the Pakistan provine of Balochistan:

Below, images of Asura, 2012,in Quitta, an annual religious rite
of the large Shiite population of Quetta,
not bombed by Sunni in 2012,
mourning the masterdom of Hussein
on the plains of Karbala in what is now Iraq.
Hussein was the grandson of the Holy Prophet.

Gwadar, a port city on the Arabian Sea being developed by China, which will province China a trace route throughout central Asia. Baloch nationalists see an effort to drown out their calls for independence.