MOSCOW (AP) - The Russian navy on Thursday launched exercises in the Caspian Sea involving 60 warships and more than 10,000 servicemen.
Navy commander Vladimir Kuroyedov said the exercises were not intended as a show of strength in the region, where the five countries bordering the Caspian have yet to decide how to divide up the sea's riches.
"By planning exercises of the Caspian flotilla, we are not trying to demonstrate our strength. But Russia has a strong military potential for tackling its tasks in the Caspian Sea should peaceful means fail," the Interfax-Military News Agency quoted Kuroyedov as saying.
The four-day exercises involve more than 10,000 servicemen from the navy, border guards and the Emergency Situations Ministry, as well as 60 warships, the ITAR-Tass news agency said.
Of the other Caspian states, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are also participating, and observers from Turkmenistan and Iran will attend, Interfax said.
The newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta suggested the purpose of the exercises - which it said were the biggest on the Caspian since the end of the Soviet Union - was to help Russia get its way on dividing the sea.
Until 1991, Iran and the Soviet Union had equal rights to the Caspian's oil and other natural resources. But with the Soviet collapse and the appearance of new states, the sea's legal status has remained in limbo.
A presidential summit in April failed to resolve the issue, and delegations from the five states met again this week in Iran.