Azernews.Az

Deputy Director at Iran's Department of Environment in marine sector Abdol-Reza Karbasi said Iran has completed gathering 25 tons of oil spots from the coastal waters in the resource-rich Caspian Sea, Mehr news agency reported on Tuesday.

Karbasi said Iran would appeal to international bodies to get compensation for relevant damage. He did not cite which body would be approached, but claimed that Azerbaijan produces oil in the Caspian Sea by using obsolete oil facilities and thereby pollutes the basin.

Karbasi added that Iran is estimating the value of damage, after which it will appeal to an international agency. The appeal process would take six to seven months.

Iran maintained in early August that the oil spots originate from Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources on August 24 rejected the allegations made by Karbasi on Azerbaijan's polluting the Caspian Sea.

Head of the environmental policy department of the ministry, Rasim Sattarzade, told Trend news agency that the main cause of the Caspian's pollution is the discharge of industrial and household waste from the land. This shows that Azerbaijan cannot be a major source of pollution. A real factor of the Caspian Sea pollution from the land is associated with the considerable number of people living in the coastal areas.

"If we take into account that much more people live along the Iranian coast of the Caspian Sea compared to other countries, we can say that Iran pollutes the sea from the land more than Azerbaijan," Sattarzade said. "A lack of treatment facilities and sewage systems on the Iranian coast of the Caspian Sea and the fact that the population there uses a large volume of fertilizers including pesticides while farming play a large role in the pollution of the Caspian."