NEW DELHI, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Pakistan said it will seek U.S. help for the installment of three to four nuclear power plants to overcome any energy crisis the faces after 2008.
"If the U.S. pressure on Pakistan to back out of Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline increases, Islamabad has plans to seek U.S. cooperation for the installment of the latest nuclear power plants in Pakistan, which will ensure the country its energy supply," The Indian Express newspaper said Tuesday.
Each of the plants would have a capacity of 1,000 MW, it added.
Pakistan had made plans to increase its nuclear capacity to generate 8,500 MW of power, said a senior Pakistani official. He said Pakistan's current nuclear power capacity was 427 MW and it needed gas and electricity to sustain its current economic growth for the next 10 years.
"If the proposed IPI project may not materialize and Pakistan will have to start work on the remaining two proposed gas pipelines, the Qatar-Pakistan pipeline and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline," the official said.
The United States has been mounting pressure on India and Pakistan to abandon the pipeline from Iran. Neither country has yet responded.
