From rxpgnews.com
India-Iran pipeline will help Iran's n-plans: Bodman
By IANS,
Mar 22, 2007 - 8:07:46 PM
Mumbai, March 22 - Visiting US Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman Thursday said it was opposed to the gas pipeline project between India, Pakistan and Iran as any cooperation in the development of its oil and natural gas assets would help Tehran in its nuclear weapons programme.
Speaking to reporters here at the end of his three-India visit Bodman said:' There has been conversation between India and other nations and Iran about finding ways of developing oil and gas assets and if that is allowed to go forward, in our judgment, this will contribute to development of nuclear weapons.'
Bodman, who earlier in the day visited nuclear reactors at the Tarapur atomic centre, said this when asked whether the US was opposed to the cooperation between India and Iran over a gas pipeline passing through Pakistan.
'I have expressed to the highest level of the Indian government about our opposition to the Iranian regime's developing nuclear weapons,' Bodman said.
'We continue to voice that and on the other hand will continue to work with the Indian government and finalising arrangements of civil nuclear cooperation. They operate in separate areas -.'
Asked if the US was apprehensive that the pipeline would fund Tehran's nuclear programme, the US energy secretary said,' Of course! I think it is against the interest of the US, it is against the interest of the world.'
'Supporting any nuclear weapon programme is against the interest of the world.'
We are focusing on developing civil nuclear cooperation. That is my primary focus -. That is why I came here,' Bodman said.
Bodman visited the two nuclear reactors at the Tarapur plant, some 100 km south of Mumbai, and held roundtable discussions on Indo-US civilian nuclear cooperation with the members of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry -.
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