Russia wants to ease tensions over a multi-billion-dollar oil deal between Azerbaijan and a consortium of Western companies, Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev said Wednesday.


Speaking during a break in a two-day meeting with deputy foreign ministers of the four other countries bordering the Caspian Sea -- Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Iran -- Kozyrev said there was no need to make too much of the disagreement between Russia and Azerbaijan.


"There is no unsurmountable tension between the states of the region, in particular between Russia and Azerbaijan," Kozyrev said.


"I have just had a telephone conversation with Azerbaijan President Haydar Aliyev," he said. "We came to the conclusion that we need to cooperate and that the temperature around the Caspian oil deal should not be raised."


Russian diplomats said last month Russia would not recognize the $7.14 billion deal between Baku and a consortium of Western oil companies.


Kozyrev's Foreign Ministry argues that the Caspian is an inland water, not a sea, and under international law its resources should be exploited jointly by all the littoral states. But this idea, first launched by Iran two years ago, could face opposition from other states, especially Azerbaijan.


But Fuel and Energy Minister Yury Shafranik has backed Russia's biggest oil conglomerate, LUKoil, which has a 10 percent stake in the deal. The president of the upper house of Russia's parliament, Vladimir Shumeiko, said Tuesday that Prime Minister Viktor Chernormyrdin would soon take a decision to end to what he called the "lack of coordination" between the two ministries.