IRAN RUSSIA DISCUSSED NEW GAS LINE WEST VIA ARMENIA, UKRAINE
MOSCOW 10 Aug. (IPS) Iran and Russian officials discussed Thursday the possibility of construction a pipe line carrying Iranian natural gas to Western Europe via Armenia, Russia and Ukraine, informed sources said in Moscow.
Russian First Deputy Foreign Minster Alexander Avdeyev and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister and special envoy of the Iranian President Mohammad Khatami for issues of the Caspian Sea status Ali Ahani raised the issue of the troubled the troubled waters of the Caspian Sea.
In their talks on Thursday, Mr. Ahani said Iranian experts were studying the feasibility of such a new route for Iranian gas to reach the European markets.
Islamic Iran in interested in new oil and gas routes because of Washington’s opposition to transfer its energies via more profitable access such as Turkey.
The United States has only forces other Caspian Sea oil and gas producing states such as Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan to use alternate routes, by passing Iran.
On Wednesday, the Iranian diplomat described as "positive and constructive" the talks he had held with the Russian president's special representative on Caspian Sea settlement Viktor Kalyuzhny.
"Both sides agree that the Caspian Sea should be a Sea of "friendship and mutual understanding". This can be achieved only through peace talks and consultations", Mr. Ahani said, quoted by the official news agency IRNA.
The Iranian diplomat said that during the talks the sides did not discuss the principles of Caspian Sea division. However Ahani said that if all five states agree on a single formula, then "we may reach an agreement on the creation of a 25-mile zone to which each country will have a sovereign right."
Considering the complexity of the question of legal status for the Caspian Sea, Tehran thinks that the most reasonable way to do that would be "using the Caspian Sea's riches on the basis of a condominium" Ahani added.
After the meeting, he will fly to Ashkhabad and then will visit other Caspian countries for consultations. He expressed the hope that these talks will help the littoral states to move forward in determining the legal status of the sea.
The Caspian Sea, believed to possess the world's third largest resource of oil and gas following the Persian Gulf and Russia's Siberia is bordered by Iran, Turkmenistan, the Azerbaijan Republic, Russia and Kazakhstan.
Earlier, Iran’s Foreign Minister Kamal Karazi had issued a new warning to neighbouring countries over the development of Caspian Sea oil resources, saying it had not been decided who owns them.
"The bordering countries do not have the right to exploit its (Caspian Sea) energy reserves before a legal status is established for the Sea", Tehran radio had quoted Karazi as saying.
"Considering there are different views on the Caspian's underground fields and that we don't know who they belong to, we naturally expect that no prospecting or development will be undertaken there", the minister said, repeating that Iran would not relinquish "its legitimate 20 percent, which include the disputed Alborz-Alov oil field" in the Caspian, and called for a dialogue with the other countries involved.
The five's failure to resolve the issue since the collapse of the Soviet Union 10 years ago has hindered oil development in the region, thought to hold 200 billion barrels of oil and 600 trillion cubic feet of gas.
Iran is insisting that all five Caspian countries receive an equal 20 percent portion of the sea, which would cut into the sectors Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan have already marked out for themselves.
Baku, Almaty and Moscow however claim the offshore share of each country should be determined in proportion to the length of the coastline, a deal which would reduce Iran's share to 13 percent.
Tensions surged last month when an Iranian gunship threatened a British Petroleum research vessels hired by Azerbaijan. Russian President Vladimir Putin urged Azerbaijan and Iran to peacefully resolve their dispute over the partition of Caspian oil fields.
However, Iran had stressed that it was "equipped enough" to defend its share in the oil-rich Caspian Sea.
"We are not concerned over the status of the Caspian since we are sufficiently equipped to defend ourselves, but, we're anxious over the dispute among the (littoral) states", the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s senior spokesman Hamid-Reza Assefi told a Tehran press conference.
Assefi disclaimed report carried by Azeri press and media of an imminent visit by Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi to Baku within the coming 10 days and at the same time denied information about the concentration of Iranian troops at Iran-Azerbaijan borders.
"Kharrazi is scheduled to visit Baku in autumn and he has not planned any visit in the near future", the spokesman said.
The five littoral states of the sea are scheduled to meet in the Turkmen capital Ashkhabad in October to decide on a legal regime for the waters.
All sides fear the Caspian could one day become a new zone of instability, replicating the many wars, which flamed on the territory of the former Soviet Union, analysts commented.
Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev had said on Friday that he had won the backing of Russia and Kazakhstan in the worsening dispute with Iran over the status of the Caspian Sea.
"The support of the two countries will strengthen Azerbaijan's hand when it sits down with Iran for talks, probably in the autumn, to discuss how to divide up the oil-rich Caspian between the five states that border it", analysts commented.
The Azeri leader was speaking after returning from a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) where he held meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kazakh leader Nursultan Nazarbayev.
"Our three Caspian states once again underlined our united position on the question of the status of the Caspian ... based on the necessity that the sea is divided up on the basis of international principles". "And secondly, they spoke repeatedly about the importance of defending the external borders of the former Soviet Union -- that is one of the principles of the CIS," added Aliyev.
Turkmenistan's President Saparmurat Niyazov has so far sided with Iran in staking a claim to Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian.
For Tehran, the Caspian is not as important as it is to other shorelines states as Iran's oil industry is centered around the Gulf, Lee said.
Much will now depend on whether the other countries agree to Iran's 20-percent claim or find a solution to make Tehran drop its demand. ENDS CASPIAN 10801