![Critical Attitude of Moscow and Tehran to Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline Remains](https://turan.az/resized/750/500/resize/media/2019/main/081300020974.jpg)
Critical Attitude of Moscow and Tehran to Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline Remains
Baku / 08.13.19 / Turan: Iran is against the construction of a gas pipeline through the Caspian Sea for environmental reasons. This was stated on August 12 by the representative of the National Iranian Gas Company Behruz Namdari, speaking at the Caspian Economic Forum in Avaza, Turkmenistan.
"The construction of a gas pipeline from east to west of the Caspian Sea can cause severe damage to the ecology of the region .... Iran is opposed to its construction," RIA Novosti quoted Namdari as saying. At the same time, he suggested that Baku and Ashgabat use the Iranian infrastructure to transport gas to Europe.
At the same time in Moscow, Sergei Prikhodko, deputy head of the Apparatus of the Government of Russia, also made it clear that Russia is against the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline project for environmental reasons.
"Large projects in the Caspian should undergo an impartial environmental review," he said on August 12.
The protocol on environmental impact assessment, signed earlier by the five Caspian littoral countries, according to him, "enshrines the right of each of the states located on the Caspian coast to participate in a comprehensive environmental review of marine activities of a trans-boundary nature that could potentially affect" the nature of the Caspian Sea.
Recall that exactly a year ago, the leaders of the Caspian littoral countries signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. According to this document, such projects should be agreed only by countries through whose territorial waters the gas pipeline will pass.
Ashgabat and Baku are planning to lay a gas pipeline across the bottom of the Caspian Sea from the coast of Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan and then through Turkey to the European Union. -02D-
Politics
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Armenia is not against the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group, but does not consider it appropriate to discuss this issue now. "In the context of peace, we consider it possible to make a decision on the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group. When peace is an established fact, the existence of such a format may raise questions," Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a press conference today. "The whole question is about the timing, we need to understand how effectively and correctly to turn such topics into a subject of discussion right now," the Armenian Prime Minister added.
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He expressed his willingness to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the border between the two countries. "A meeting with Ilham Aliyev could take place at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. I am open to such a format," Pashinyan said at a press conference today. According to Pashinyan, Armenia recently presented another proposal for a peace treaty to Azerbaijan.
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