Iran not invited to Caspian Sea summit

Unlike previous years, Iran was not invited to the Caspian Sea summit in the Kazakh city of Akatu on Thursday.  Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Tuesday criticized a scheduled meeting of Caspian Sea states without Iran’s participation. The presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Russia are set to hold an “informal” summit to discuss “sub-regional cooperation”. Mottaki voiced anger that Iran was not invited to the meeting. “In our view, the meeting runs contrary to Iran’s national interests,” he said during a meeting with Kazakhstan’s new ambassador to Tehran, reports the state-run Press TV network. “The summit is against previous agreements, in which the five Caspian littoral states came to the understanding that any decision on the waterway should be made with the participation of all its neighboring countries,” Mottaki added.
Emruz interpreted the event as the first official reaction among the international community to the delegitimized government of Ahmadinejad.