Putin Warns Against Attacks on Iran

Russian President Vladimir Putin, arrives at Mehrabad International airport in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2007. Putin arrived in Tehran on Tuesday for a historic visit to hold talks on Iran's nuclear program and attend a Caspian sea summit. The visit, the first by a Kremlin leader since World War II, is taking place despite warnings of a possible assassination plot and amid hopes that a round of personal diplomacy could help offer a solution to an international standoff on Iran's nuclear program.(AP Photo/Hasan Sarbakhshian) (Hasan Sarbakhshian - AP)

"All issues related to the Caspian should be settled exclusively by littoral nations," Ahmadinejad said.

Moscow strongly opposes U.S.- and European-backed efforts to build pipelines to deliver Central Asian and Caspian oil and gas to the West by bypassing Russia, through which all the region's pipelines now flow. Russia has pushed for new pipelines to cross its territory as well.

Putin argued that all pipeline projects in the region should require the approval by all five Caspian nations to take effect, a view that would give each capital a veto.

"Projects which may inflict a serious damage to the Caspian environment can't be and mustn't be implemented without a preliminary discussion by the Caspian five and making a consensus decision in the interests of our common sea," Putin said.

But the idea was barely mentioned in comments by the leaders of the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, which are striving to balance their relations with Russia, the West and Asia.

In Baku, Azerbaijan's capital, political analyst Ilgar Mamedov said the veto idea was only "Putin's opinion." Caspian nations "are independent and act in accordance with their own interests," he said.

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Associated Press writers Ali Akbar Dareini and Nasser Karimi in Tehran and Steve Gutterman in Moscow contributed to this report.