The statement by Irans Consul General in Lahore will cause dismay to ordinary citizens facing the rigours of gas loadshedding that while Iran has completed its portion of the gas pipeline, Pakistan has to yet to do its part of the deal. He said this while speaking to Nawa-i-Waqt on Wednesday. It might be true that Iran needs the market that Pakistan represents, but it is Pakistan that is facing the power crisis behind the loadshedding. It would have been expected that Pakistan would have been more anxious to complete its portion of the pipeline, but it appears that it is following the dictates of the USA, which opposes the project, as a result of which it has forced India to back out of it, and thus reduced its viability. The alternative touted by the USA has been the Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gasline. This gasline is also needed by Pakistan, but depends on its security being guaranteed by Afghanistan, which will only be possible after the withdrawal of foreign forces from the country. If at all constructed, the TAPI gasline will continually be hostage to conditions in Afghanistan, which will only be secured by local inhabitants. Pakistan had secured the gasline from Iran, even though its supplying to India was unconditional, and not based on a solution of the Kashmir issue, as it should have been. Pakistan was committed to the IPI project even though India had not been behaving as a good neighbour, and long before the exertion of undue American pressure to introduce its own selfish geopolitical goals into a purely commercial agreement. Another thing that was mentioned by Consul-General Mohammad Hossein Bani Asadi was that the volume of trade between the two countries was low. It must be acknowledged that the volume of $1 billion neither reflects the closeness of Pak-Iran relations nor the potential that exists, provided the businessmen of both countries were allowed to play their due role. It would be for the governments to examine the tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade, and take measures removing them. However, if that is done in a correct spirit, the exercise will not yield the desired results.