Azernews.Az

A senior US lawmaker has called on the Bush administration to appoint a special envoy on energy issues in the Caspian region that Washington deems as strategic for hydrocarbon supplies.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee co-chairman Richard Lugar's statement came after his visit to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Ukraine. The proposal was reflected in a statement issued in Washington in conclusion of his talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
Lugar reminded that he and the committee chair, Democratic Senator Joseph Biden sent a letter to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in October 2007 stressing the importance of the appointment by US President George Bush.
"If the United States appoints the envoy, this will be a clear-cut signal that we consider this strategically important region a number one priority," the lawmaker said.
Lugar said the U.S. should not allow Russia to play a dominant role in the supplies of Caspian hydrocarbons to world markets. According to him, the two Central Asian states are seeking to diversify routes for the supplies of energy resources to reduce their dependence on the United States' long-standing rival.
The senator said his visit to the four mentioned countries was aimed at boosting international cooperation in the area of energy security. During the talks in Azerbaijan, linking the country's energy infrastructure with that of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan was high on the agenda.
Russia's influential Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Independent Newspaper), in a story analyzing the objectives of Lugar's two-week-long visit to the Caspian region, said the senator focused on issues pertaining to the exports of the region's energy resources to Western markets bypassing Russia during his talks with the leaders. This shows that rivalry over the supplies of Caspian hydrocarbon resources will intensify in 2008, the publication said.
Russian analysts say the U.S. will continue lobbying for the implementation of the NABUCCO project this year.
The project envisions building a 3,300 km-long pipeline under the Caspian Sea to ship gas to world markets by 2011. The pipeline will eventually go through Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Austria to take Caspian and Central Asian gas to Europe. The pipe's annual throughput capacity is estimated at up to 31 billion cubic meters. The project will bring Azerbaijan considerable transit revenues.