New Delhi: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor took a swipe at the US Thursday after it announced a deal for working with Pakistan to develop ‘massive oil reserves’ in the South Asian country, saying Washington may have ‘some illusions’ about finding oil in Pakistan and ‘I wish them luck’.
US President Donald Trump has announced sealing a trade deal with Pakistan and said Washington will work with Islamabad to develop what he described as the South Asian nation’s “massive oil reserves”.
It was not immediately clear what massive oil reserves in Pakistan Trump was referring to.
In a social media post, the US president also wondered if Pakistan could sell oil to India “some day”.
“We have just concluded a deal with the country of Pakistan, whereby Pakistan and the United States will work together on developing their massive oil reserves,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social Wednesday.
“We are in the process of choosing the oil company that will lead this partnership. Who knows, maybe they’ll be selling oil to India someday!” he added.
Asked about Trump’s remarks, Tharoor said, “They may have some illusions about finding oil in Pakistan, I wish them luck.”
“We were all one country at one time. I have not seen any reports that there was a great deal of oil to be found in what is today Pakistan,” the former Union minister told reporters in the Parliament House complex.
“But if the Americans want to look, let them look. We found some oil in Bombay High, we found some oil in Assam, but we are importing 86 per cent of our oil and gas needs. So I do not know how much they are going to find. As far as I am concerned, let them do what they want with other countries; what matters to me is what they do with our country,” he added.
Pakistan has long claimed to have large oil deposits along its coast, but no progress has been made to tap those. It has been trying to lure in investments to tap into these reserves.
The country currently imports oil from the Middle East to meet its energy demands.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif took to social media on Thursday to thank Trump over the “historic” trade agreement and expressed hope that it would expand the cooperation between the two sides.
PTI
