PARTICIPANT AT CASPIAN SUMMIT AGREED TO DISAGREE

ESHQABAD - 24 Apr. (IPS) As expected, the Caspian Sea states Summit conference ended Wdnesday here in the Turkmen Capital without statements or fanfare.

"The views of the participating countries were divergent on drawing up the median line as well as other features of the legal regime of the Caspian Sea. But, the heads of state of the participating countries managed to freely trade views with one another", the Turkmen President Safarmorad Niyazov told journalists at the end of the inconclusive meeting, adding that talks on determining the legal regime of the Caspian Sea will continue in the future.

The conference was marred as the Iranian President, Mohammad Khatami, had to leave the first rounds of discussion because of what his aides said was a "back pain".

As he left the conference room, some journalists speculated that Mr. Khatami might have left the talks in protest, as the Russian President Vladimir Putin had urged both Khatami and his Azeri counterpart, Heydar Aliyev, to "join Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan in defining their own borders in the Caspian waters.

Iran's Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Mohsen Aminzadeh rejected the reports that President Mohammad Khatami had walked out from the Summit’s first session, saying: "Mr. Khatami abruptly left the venue after the session ended. This may have prompted the reporters to think that he...left the proceedings for a check-up", he added.

"Khatami did not quit the last night's (Tuesday) session. In fact, he preferred to exit the venue because of a back pain (he felt)", the Iranian official told reporters.

Iran Press Service, one of the first agencies to report the "malaise", said that Mr. Khatami had suffer a heart attack and was taken to a military hospital in Eshqabad.

"The five countries pledged to refrain from using force or creating tension in the Caspian Sea so that the issues of contention are resolved through understanding and compromise", the Turkmen president said.

Tehran, which insists on the equal sharing of the Caspian Sea’s resources between its five bordering states, is particularly at odd with Azerbaijan, as both claims same oil fields.

Last July, Iran sent warplanes and gunboat to stop oil research ships exploring the disputed fields of Alborz, thus creating the most dramatic diplomatic incident after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with a new independent state of Caucasus.

However, the presidents of the five coastal countries, namely Iran, Russia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, described the summit, held on the proposal of Turkmen President, as successful.

President Khatami for his part described the Summit as "positive in nature".

Speaking to the official news agency IRNA before leaving Eshqabad for Astana, the new capital of Kazakhstan, the embattled Khatami said: "Of course, one cannot expect the Caspian Sea problems to be solved at a single session" and hoped that the participants in expert sessions would reach solutions able to guarantee the interests of the Caspian Sea littoral states on the basis of "justice".

At the meeting, Mr. Khatami on Tuesday had reiterated Iran's view that common sovereignty on the Caspian Sea is the best choice for the littoral states and admonished against taking unilateral action on tapping the inland sea's resources.

Speaking on the first day of a two-day summit of the coastal states, the Iranian president further invited the littoral states to "unanimity, coexistence, dialogue and flexibility."

Though Tehran has repeatedly made it known that it considers any unilateral deals for energy exploration in the Caspian Sea as null and void before the issue of legal regime of the Caspian is settled, but all major producers, namely Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia are already extracting oil and gas from the area.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran ... announces that any agreement on the sea will be valid only if it is approved unanimously by the littoral countries" Hojjatoleslam Khatami said, calling on other coastal states, in this very case Azerbaijan, to refrain from operating on the 20 percent of the sea which it regards as its minimum share on the bed and the surface of the Sea", IRNA quoted Mr. Khatami as having warned his four other countperparts.

As Mr. Khatami described the two-tier agreements of 1921 and 1940 between Iran and the former Soviet Union as a "suitable yardstick" to "finalise the Caspian legal regime and attend to new requirements", other participants, including those of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan observed that the treaties that had been signed between Iran and the Soviet Union were "void and null" and that both the Sea’s bed and surface waters must be divided according to internationally agreed principles.

On the sideline of the meeting, Azeri President Aliyev met Mr. Khatami, who, according to an IRNA report stressed on "enormous historical, religious and cultural ties between the two countries and called for the expansion of bilateral relations between Tehran and Baku in different fields.

"The interests of all coastal states must be met in the negotiations relating to the Caspian Sea," President Khatami said, adding the issue of the inland sea interested both Tehran and Baku.

Despite his back pain, Mr. Khatami also met with his Russian counterpart, with whom he discussed at length the dramatic situation in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, Central Asia as well as the Caspian region, correspondents said.

After Kazakhstan, Mr. Khatami would visit Uzbekistan and Kyrkyzstan. ENDS CASPIAN SUMMIT ENDS 24402