TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Russian leader Vladimir Putin met his Iranian counterpart Tuesday and implicitly warned the U.S. not to use a former Soviet republic to stage an attack on Iran. He also said nations shouldn't pursue oil pipeline projects in the area if they weren't backed by regional powers.
At a summit of the five nations that border the inland Caspian Sea, Putin said none of the nations' territory should be used by any outside countries for use of military force against any nation in the region. It was a clear reference to long-standing rumors that the U.S. was planning to use Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic, as a staging ground for any possible military action against Iran.
We are saying that no Caspian nation should offer its territory to third powers for use of force or military aggression against any Caspian state," Putin said.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also underlined the need to keep outsiders away from the Caspian.
All Caspian nations agree on the main issue - that all aspects related to this sea must be settled exclusively by littoral nations," he said. "The Caspian Sea is an inland sea and it only belongs to the Caspian states, therefore only they are entitled to have their ships and military forces here."
The legal status of the Caspian - believed to contain the world's third-largest energy reserves - has been in limbo since the 1991 Soviet collapse, leading to tension and conflicting claims to seabed oil deposits.
Iran, which shared the Caspian's resources equally with the Soviet Union, insists that each coastal nation receive an equal portion of the seabed. Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan want the division based on the length of each nation's shoreline, which would give Iran a smaller share.
It really depends on what the former Republics want to do. We have had talks with each of them about the pipeline. It depends on if they want to piss off Russia or not. Kazakstan was one of the first nations to split from the Sov's. We have troops in Georgia and train their military, so its possibel that another group would like to get cozy with us.