Kremlin, Iran Discuss Building Oil Pipeline to Black Sea Ports

The Soviet Union is discussing with Iran the construction of an oil pipeline from Iran to Soviet ports on the Black Sea, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Friday.

Such a pipeline would provide a shorter alternative to the Persian Gulf sea routes for moving oil to Europe. And it would link the Soviet Union and Iran in a long-term development project.

Construction of such a pipeline “is being negotiated, but nothing is decided yet,” Gennady I. Gerasimov, chief spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, told reporters.

Gerasimov said Soviet officials are also discussing the reopening of a 670-mile natural gas pipeline from Iran to Soviet Armenia that was closed by the Iranians several years ago. Significant repairs will be required before the pipeline can be reopened, he said.

Also, Gerasimov said, the two governments have been talking about building a railroad from Iran to the Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union.

“No agreements are completed but both sides want agreement,” he said.

All these projects were brought up last week, he said, while Deputy Foreign Minister Yuli M. Vorontsov was in Tehran. He indicated that Vorontsov made no progress toward his primary goal--getting Iran to agree to a U.N. Security Council resolution on a cease-fire in the war between Iran and Iraq.

Iran has insisted that it will agree to stop fighting only if Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein is deposed and Iraq is condemned for starting the war.