From: Justin Burke (JBurke@sorosny.org)
Date: Fri Apr 28 2000 - 12:56:03 EDT
IRAN WARNS AGAINST CONFRONTATION IN CASPIAN
Addressing the Eurasia-2000 forum in Almaty on 27 April, Iranian Vice
President Hasan Habibi warned that competition for influence
in the Caspian region, in particular by the U.S., could
compound instability in the area, Reuters and AFP reported.
Habibi said conflicts in the Caucasus and the war in
Afghanistan pose a threat to regional security. He also
called for a speedy decision on defining the legal status of
the Caspian Sea, but stressed that that decision must be
taken by the five Caspian littoral states. He said Iran does
not support the agreement reached in 1998 between Russia and
Kazakhstan delimiting their respective sectors of the
northern Caspian. But Russian Deputy Prime Minister
Khristenko told journalists after talks with Kazakh President
Nursultan Nazarbaev on the sidelines of the summit that
Moscow welcomes Kazakhstan's offer to revise that
delimitation agreement, according to Interfax. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister
Mohammed Hossein Adeli told the Eurasia-2000 forum on 28
April that the choice of export routes for Caspian
hydrocarbons should not be constrained by political factors,
Reuters reported. He argued that a pipeline running south
from Kazakhstan through Iran to the Persian Gulf "is the
cheapest, shortest, most economically viable way to take 1.8
million barrels per day of oil over 1,500 km." He estimated
the cost of construction of such a pipeline at $1.2 billion,
less than half the estimated cost of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline
which the U.S. and Turkey support. Some analysts say a firm
commitment by Kazakhstan to export some oil via the Baku-
Ceyhan pipeline is needed for that project to be economically
viable, but a Kazakh oil sector official said earlier this
month that Kazakhstan is unlikely to produce enough oil to
require access to that pipeline before 2008. LF
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