Russian president Vladimir Putin on Tuesday warned the US not to use force against Iran in the current nuclear dispute.

Any military intervention in the Caspian Sea area would be unacceptable, Putin declared as he attended a five-country regional summit in Tehran.

Leaders of Russia and Iran spoke out strongly on Tuesday against outside interference into Caspian Sea affairs during the summit that focused on ways to divide the region’s substantial energy resources.

His remarks also appeared directed at Azerbaijan, amid Russian media speculation that the US might be trying to negotiate with the republic on the right to use military facilities there, something Azeri officials deny.

“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,” Mr Putin said. A summit declaration from the five, which include Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan beside Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan, subsequently stressed that “under no circumstances will they allow (the use of their) territories by third countries to launch aggression or other military action against any of the member states”.The first Kremlin leader to visit Iran since Joseph Stalin in 1943, Putin warned that energy pipeline projects crossing the Caspian could only be implemented if all five nations that border the inland sea support them.

Putin did not name any specific country, but his statement underlined Moscow’s strong opposition to US-backed efforts to build pipelines to deliver hydrocarbons to the West bypassing Russia.

“Projects that may inflict serious environmental damage to the region cannot be implemented without prior discussion by all five Caspian nations,” he said. Other nations bordering the Caspian Sea and in attendance at the summit are: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.

Putin also emphasised the need for all Caspian nations to prohibit the use of their territory by any outside countries for use of military force against any nation in the region — a clear reference to long-standing rumours that the US 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.

HOPE SPRINGS

Israel, Hezbollah swap prisoners

Israel exchanged a Hezbollah prisoner and the bodies of two Lebanese fighters for the corpse of a drowned Israeli civilian, a move that could pave the way for a trade involving two Israeli soldiers whose capture sparked the war last year, AP reports from Naqoura in Lebanon.

A crowd of people, some weeping, mobbed two ambulances carrying the Lebanese bodies after a swap with the Israeli military just after sundown in the no man’s land along the heavily fortified border.
Two women in black showered the ambulances with rice while relatives of the two dead Hezbollah guerrillas held up their pictures. The freed Hezbollah member came across the border in a black Mercedes, peering out of the window and smiling.