Tehran wants to be consulted on all Caspian Sea concerns

Iran reminded Russia and its neighbours around the Caspian Sea on Thursday that Tehran wants to be consulted on all issues regarding the sharing of the sea’s resources, stressing at the same time, that previous agreements between Iran and the former Soviet Union still applied, the semi-official Iranian news agency IRNA reported. “A new set of rules for the Caspian must take into account the current arrangements, but for now only the 1921 and 1940 agreements (between Iran and the former Soviet Union) still apply, and no other arrangement outside those agreements is acceptable,” an official at the foreign ministry was quoted as saying. The comment came following an agreement signed on 9 January between Russian President Vladimur Putin and his Azerbaijani counterpart Heydar Aliyev concerning the status of the Caspian Sea, calling for a delineation of the sea bed, but not the waters, between the two countries. Accordingly, a line would be drawn from an agreed point in the sea’s centre to the Azeri-Russian border on the shoreline. Meanwhile, according to a 11 January report by the Russian Itar-Tass news agency, Iranian President Mohammad Khattami has called on Caspian coastal states to reach a settlement soon on the legal status of the Caspian Sea. The waters, bordered by five countries - Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran - are said to be home to billions of dollars of potential oil reserves. The countries, however, have yet to agree on how to share the sea’s resources amicably, the report said.