A new round of talks began between the five Caspian Sea countries seeking to divide up the resource-rich sea but a north-south split remained as Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan were close to signing a trilateral agreement, Kazakhstan\'s deputy foreign minister said. The three northern countries \"have agreed the text of an agreement and there should be no obstacles to signing it,\" Kairat Abuseitov told journalists after the talks opened in Kazakhstan\'s second city Almaty. The five-way negotiations, which are set to continue until Wednesday, are aimed at solving an impasse which, since the break-up of the Soviet Union, has hampered efforts to exploit the major oil and gas reserves beneath the Caspian. Iran still wants a 20-percent share rather than the 13-percent it would get if the sea were divided in proportion to the length of each country\'s coast, as the northern three have proposed, said Mehti Safari, Iran\'s special representative for the Caspian Sea. Yet Safari said Iran was being flexible, adding that bilateral agreements of the type already signed by Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia \"are a way to multilateral consensus.\" The likely three-way accord between Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia comes after each of the three signed bi-lateral agreements with each other. Turkmenistan and Iran reached their own preliminary bilateral agreement in March which foresees the start of work to delineate their common border, Turkmenistan\'s official media reported. Russia\'s Deputy Foreign Minister Viktor Kalyuzhny warned that bilateral agreements should not be an end in themselves. \"We\'re ready for two-way, three-way and four-way agreements on the way to signing a full Caspian Sea convention,\" Kalyuzhny said. Kalyuzhny questioned Kazakh plans to build up a navy aimed at ensuring the security of Kazakh oil and gas installations, saying that the Caspian should be a \"demilitarised sea of peace and stability.\" The delineation row came perilously close to boiling over into armed conflict in 2001 when an Iranian warship trained its guns on an Azeri vessel prospecting for oil in disputed waters. (AFP)