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Iran stands against Trans-Caspian pipeline

13 February 2009 08:42 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Rashad Suleymanov â€“ APA-Economics. Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Hossein Noqrekar Shirazi told state media Monday Iran is opposed to the construction of the planned 700km gas artery across the Caspian seabed because of the potential for environmental damage, Mehr reported.
The Trans-Caspian system would run from Kazakh ports across the Caspian to Baku. Its estimated capacity approaches 1.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year.
He said the Islamic Republic is against any action or activity that could threaten the Caspian Sea ecosystem.
Moscow may have agreed to the plan at some point under pressure from certain Western countries, but Russia is in fact opposed to it and at the end of the day will not approve of implementation of the plan, Noqrekar Shirazi noted.
However, analysts slammed Iranian ministerâ€™s comment as politically-flavored.
In June 2008, Iran announced plans to build a cross-country pipeline to ship oil from the Caspian region to the Persian Gulf and world markets