ISLAMABAD, July 19: Pakistan and Iran have failed to reach an agreement on price for one million tons of Pakistani wheat under a barter deal as Tehran, according to officials, is offering too little for the commodity.

The high-level talks held recently in Tehran to finalise the price largely remained inconclusive, an official told Dawn after the Pakistani delegation returned home on Thursday.

Food Security and Research Minister Mir Israrullah Zehri accompanied by senior officials had rushed to the Iranian capital on Sunday but could not resolve the issue. The official said the Iranian bureaucracy appeared to be unwilling to pursue the trade deal struck by President Asif Ali Zardari and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahamdinejad during the latter’s visit to Pakistan in February.

He said there was no issue over the price at the level of Iranian president and the trade minister. It was the bureaucracy which was creating problems by raising objections to the price and quality of Pakistani wheat.

However, the official said, more meetings were expected at the technical level to resolve the issue.

Pakistan has offered to export wheat at $350 per ton to Iran under the barter trade. Iran initially offered a price of $275 per ton, but at a recent meeting its technical team lowered it to $255.

The Iranian team had quoted the price of wheat imported from Kazakhstan, the official said, adding that the quality of Pakistani wheat was much better than that of Central Asian states. Pakistan is now demanding the July international price of American hard red winter wheat, a superior quality of the grain.

If an agreement is reached, Pakistan will import about 600,000 tons of urea and 200,000 tons of iron ore from Iran.  But the Iranian bureaucracy is reported to be interested in the purchase of Indian wheat. The wheat export will help India settle part of its oil import bill through a bilateral mechanism.—Mubarak Zeb Khan