Iran best route for piping oil, gas: Kharrazi

TEHRAN (NNI): Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said on Sunday that the collapse of the former Soviet Union was the most significant development in the history of the Central Asia and the Caucasus in the past century.

Addressing the 8th Conference on the Central Asia and the Caucasus, Kharrazi said the ethnic disputes and the differences on border disputes dating back to the past is the cause of instability in the region, reports IRNA.

"Iran focused its regional diplomacy on the establishment of peace and security and the economic development as well as helping strengthen the independence of the Central Asian and the Caucasian Republics".

He said Iran welcomed membership of the central Asian and the Caucasian republics in the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) to help them open a new door to the outside world and prepare the ground for peace and security and the economic development in the region.

He said Iran has organized numerous meetings between the Afghan groups to help find peaceful solution to the Afghan crisis and has endeavored to bring to an end the crisis in Chechnya. Iran, he went on, has extended assistance to the Azeri refugees, the Tajik refugees, the Afghan refugees and the Chechen refugees, which indicated to what extent Iran is interested in peace and stability in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

''If we take into account the economic and political interests at the national and regional level, Iran is the best route to set up the pipeline to Turkey and the Persian Gulf," Kharrazi said. He said the experts believe that the pipeline through Iran is the shortest, the cheapest and the safest for the Central Asian and the Caucasian states to the market and none of the countries in the region have the capability and the technology that Iran has in shipment and export of oil...