MOSCOW: Western countries should not interfere in the politics of the Caspian states, which are seeking to resolve regional issues indepen...
MOSCOW: Western countries should not interfere in the politics of the Caspian states, which are seeking to resolve regional issues independently, Iranian Ambassador to Moscow Kazem Jalali said in an interview with TASS at the end of the year.
"Iran has always emphasized the need to maintain a framework of cooperation exclusively between the five countries," he said. "Tehran's approach, like Moscow's, is based on the principle that the security and management of the Caspian Sea's resources should be carried out by the Caspian states without interference from non-regional and foreign powers," the diplomat noted.
According to Jalali, the five Caspian states are pursuing cooperation in several areas to address this issue, such as strengthening regional cooperation institutions and holding periodic meetings of foreign ministers and summits of Caspian coastal states to coordinate actions in the areas of security, environmental protection, and the economy. "We are also developing a common legal framework based on the 2018 Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea to prevent the military presence of non-Caspian states in the sea," the ambassador added.
Earlier, in an interview with Iran's state media corporation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pointed out that Western countries intend to divide the Caspian states (Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan) in order to control their decisions in the region.
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