Iran Opposes Bilateral Accord on Sharing Caspian Resources

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, December 02, 2001

Iran Opposes Bilateral Accord on Sharing Caspian Resources

Iran on Saturday reiterated its call for adopting a comprehensive legal regime on sharing Caspian resources, saying that any bilateral accord in this regard will only prolong the process of sharing the resources.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi made the remarks in response to a report that Azeri President Geidar Aliyev and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev have planned to sign an accord in Moscow on sharing the Caspian Sea resources between the two countries, the official IRNA news agency said.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Nazarbayev said in Moscow that they have made "very serious progress" over the distribution of the Caspian Sea resources, which may pave the way for signing a bilateral pact on exploiting rich oil and natural gas reserves on the bottom of northern Caspian Sea.

The Iranian spokesman said that any bilateral accord between the Caspian littoral states will not help achieve a collective agreement on the legal regime for sharing its resources.

He added that a working group of deputy foreign ministers of the five Caspian littoral states is holding talks to work out a comprehensive legal regime.

Asefi reiterated that Iran views treaties it signed with the former Soviet Union in 1921 and 1940 as the basis for formulating the legal regime, and it is ready to hold consultations in this respect.

The Caspian states should avoid unilateral and provocative actions on matters concerning the legal regime, he stressed.

The Caspian Sea is estimated to contain the world's third largest reserves of oil and gas after the Persian Gulf and Russia's Siberia.

Among the five coastal states, Iran and Turkmenistan have pushed for the division of the sea into five equal sectors, while Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia have claimed that the sea floor should be divided into national sectors, which would leave Iran with the smallest sector.

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