ALMATY Iran's envoy intimated Iran's readiness to cooperate with Kazakhstan on the proposed pipeline project here Friday.

Sadeq Kharrazi, Iran's deputy foreign minister told a press conference that Kazakh decision is wise.

Kazakhstan said Thursday it would step up work on a proposed pipeline project to Iran, which could deal a significant blow to U.S. plans for an oil link to Turkey, Agence France Presse (AFP) said.

The construction of an export pipeline from western Kazakhstan to Iran "is hindered by the American politics of sanctions against Iran," a Kazakh Foreign Ministry statement said.

The link to Iran "according to independent experts and leading international oil companies ... is the most economic and reliable," the statement said.

The United States has opposed the link instead lobbying heavily for a route from Azerbaijan to Turkey, avoiding Iran.

Kazakhstan has yet to make a final decision on the link.

A final decision on the single operatorship is expected to be made next year after a vote in mid-December.

Asked on the Caspian Sea legal status, Kharrazi said, "Iran has thus far held manifold talks with the littoral states to resolve the Caspian legal status." He said that an Iranian deputy foreign minister would make visits to Russia and Kazakhstan to discuss the Caspian legal status.

Iran wants the Caspian Sea's littoral states to resolve unanimously the legal disputes over sharing the sea's resources. It would agree with an equitable sharing of the oil-rich Caspian which would put its share at 20 percent. President Mohammad Khatami said in June that Iran was ready to share the sea's resources "equitably."

The Caspian Sea is estimated to contain the world's third largest reserves of oil and gas after the Persian Gulf and Siberia, prompting a bitter rivalry among the coastal nations since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Kharrazi said that illegal exploitations of the Caspian resources has caused environmental pollution, destroyed 30 percent of the Caspian resources, killed caviar, formed oil slick and also caused aftershocks.

On the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, Kharrazi said that no country has yet agreed to use this route and that experts had singled out Iran for offering the shortest and the most economical route.

(IRNA)