Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh will accompany President Hassan Rouhani in his trip to Azerbaijan to attend a trilateral meeting on Sunday with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Caspian Sea littoral states' negotiations will revolve around different issues, including trade, energy, communications and transit, Mehr News Agency reported. Reportedly, the oil minister and his counterparts will hold serious talks on the sidelines of the meeting with special focus on exploration and development of the Caspian Sea oil and gas fields as well as resumption of Tehran's oil swap with Baku. Zanganeh believes that Tehran and Baku can cooperate closely to launch joint oil and gas ventures in the Caspian Sea. According to the oil minister, tapping oil and gas resources in the world's biggest lake is economically viable neither for Iran nor for other states, which explains why Caspian Sea littoral states should embark on joint development projects to maximize their benefit. Azerbaijan is one of the two countries alongside Armenia to supply electricity to Iran under a swap agreement.
