Azeri President Heydar Aliyev is to arrive in Tehran on September 17, said Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for
Euro-American Affairs Ali Ahani, who has just completed talks with senior Azeri officials.
Prior to his departure from the Azerbaijani capital, he told the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, that an Azeri delegation will be arriving in Tehran in the next two weeks to make preparations for Aliyev's visit.
Terming his meetings with Azeri senior officials as "fruitful," Ahani said that during his meeting with Aliyev they discussed further expansion of Tehran-Baku cooperation, issues pertaining to a determination of the legal status of the Caspian Sea, as well as regional security.
Moreover, Ahani extended his gratitude to Aliyev for the latter's initiative in stifling the ambitions of those he called "opportunists" behind a recent Tehran-Baku dispute on the states' rights to exploitation of Caspian Sea resources.
"Although there is a dispute (between Tehran and Baku) over exploitation rights over Caspian energy resources, the two sides have since reiterated that issues of the kind can be resolved through political and technical consultations," Ahani told reporters as he was winding up his visit after a meeting with Azeri Foreign Minister Vilayat Kuliyev.
"Disputes over prospecting in the Caspian are by no means
indicative of (the existence of) hostility between the two nations," he said.
Ahani stressed that it was important for both sides to undertake efforts to prevent enemies from fishing in troubled waters – Albawaba.com
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