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by Elizabeth Rocheö ö NEW DELHI, Jan 23 (AFP) - Terrorism, a controversial gas pipeline and a road to Afghanistan will top discussions during a visit to India this weekend by Iranian President President Mohammad Khatami, officials said.

Khatami, who will arrive in New Delhi on Saturday, is to be the chief guest at India's 54th Republic Day celebrations Sunday.

Analysts here said Khatami's visit will help India and Iran deepen their political and economic ties, which have been steadily warming in the past decade.

"Both India and Iran are not traditional camp followers and both countries would like to find their own autonomy in the larger international context," said C. Uday Bhaskar, deputy director of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses.

Retired air commodore Jasjit Singh said India's relations with Iran had come a long way since Tehran backed Islamabad during two of the three wars between India and Pakistan in 1965 and 1971.

The turnaround came in the early 1990s after a visit by the then Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to New Delhi.

"After some initial hesitation, Iran tilted toward India on the issue of Kashmir ... when few in the world were even willing to listen to our case," he said.

Kashmir is India's only Muslim majority state and is claimed by both New Delhi and Islamabad.

The Himalayan state has been in the throes of an insurgency since 1989, which has claimed more than 37,500 lives.

India accuses Pakistan of arming and funding the rebels fighting New Delhi's rule in Kashmir, charges Islamabad denies.

Kashmir is not the only issue which has drawn the two close. India and Iran also share similar views on terrorism and Afghanistan.

India, Iran and Russia were the main backers of an anti-Taliban alliance which routed the hardline Islamic regime with US help in Afghanistan in November 2001.

An Indian official said that during Khatami's visit India and Iran would sign a declaration which would outline the framework for "strategic cooperation" between New Delhi and Tehran and "a vision for the future."

"Both sides are also expected to urge the international community to forge a comprehensive convention on terrorism," the official said.

More recently, India and Iran have expressed similar views on possible US-led military action against Iraq, with both against solutions imposed "from outside," as the Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazzi has put it.

Economic relations also figure high on the agenda during Khatami's visit, an official said.

Earlier this month, India and Iran announced plans to construct a new road to Afghanistan to enhance their regional trade.

Iran is also expected to urge New Delhi to conclude discussions on the construction of a 3.5 billion dollar gas pipeline for which negotiations began in 1994.

But until now, no headway has been possible due to tensions between Pakistan and India, as well as the gargantuan cost of the project.

The project entails the construction of a 1,600 kilometer (1,000 mile) pipeline from southern Iran to the Pakistani province of Sindh before traveling on another 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) to India.

For Iran, which holds the world's largest gas reserves after Russia, the Indian market is as important as the European market which it hopes to serve one day through its pipeline with Turkey.

An Indian foreign ministry official was reluctant to commit himself on whether an agreement on the pipeline would be concluded during Khatami's visit, adding that said New Delhi was waiting for a feasibility report looking at an undersea and an overland pipeline.

According to analyst Bharat Karnad, research professor with the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research India should shed its inhibitions about Pakistan sabotaging the pipeline.

"Iran is in a position to arm-twist Pakistan to ensure this does not happen," he said.

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