India and Iran began a round of bilateral talks on Wednesday in New Delhi over progress on a proposed $7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline, a spokesman for India's oil ministry said.
Iran's deputy oil minister Mohammad Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian and India's oil secretary Sushil Tripathi will review issues related to the pipeline project during the two-day meeting, the spokesman said.
"We will apprise the Iranian delegation of the recent talks India has had with Pakistan in New Delhi," he said.
The spokesman said the two sides will discuss the route of the proposed pipeline, its technological and legal aspects and the price of the gas to be sold by Iran to India and Pakistan.
All three countries have agreed to set a four-to-six-month target to finalise the tripartite agreement on the project.
India, which imports 70 per cent of the oil it consumes, is in talks to build gas pipelines from Myanmar, Iran and Turkmenistan to meet the growing energy needs of its expanding economy.