An Iranian delegation led by Iran's deputy oil minister arrived in Islamabad on Friday to hold talks with Pakistani officials on the multi-billion-U.S. dollar Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project.

The visit of Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Mohammad-Hadi Nejad Hosseinian comes a few days after a telephone talk between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf, who vowed to push the project forward.

The proposed 2,670-km IPI pipeline project has about 1,115-km length in Iran, 705 km in Pakistan and 850 km in India, and is likely to be initiated by mid-2007 and completed in early 2010, according to local reports.

Pakistan is pursuing the project to meet the expected energy supply and demand gap after 2010, reports said.

Source: Xinhua