Iran Pessimistic on Caspian Legal Regime in Short Period

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, April 16, 2002

Iran Pessimistic on Caspian Legal Regime in Short Period

Iran on Monday expressed pessimism on the prolonged talks on the legal regime of the Caspian Sea, saying that as a "territorial issue", the talks cannot achieve results during a few sessions.

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Iran on Monday expressed pessimism on the prolonged talks on the legal regime of the Caspian Sea, saying that as a "territorial issue", the talks cannot achieve results during a few sessions.

Such negotiations follow a long process and one should not expect that everything will be sorted out in one or a few sessions,Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said, quoted by the official IRNA news agency.

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

Among the five littoral states, Iran and Turkmenistan have pushed for a division of the sea into five equal sectors, while Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia contend that the sea floor shouldbe divided into national sectors.

Although the five nations have recently decided to hold a long-awaited summit meeting in Turkmenistan's capital of Ashkhabad next week to solve the problem, observers here are pessimistic about the result of the summit since the differences among the countries still remain after their marathon negotiations.

Asefi noted that during the past talks, a particular, definite and clear share has not been determined for any state.

Iran believes that a lasting legal regime which secures the long-term interests of all the countries can only be achieved through consensus and the overall agreement among the countries involved, he added.

The spokesman, however, underlined that the upcoming summit of the Caspian littoral states is of special importance and expressed his country's willingness to work for the success of the meeting.

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