Along with the fifth Caspian state, Iran, they account for 90 percent of world trade in black caviar, which fetches them 100 million dollars annually.

The agreement to suspend fishing was reached at a meeting of the standing committee CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, in Paris. CITES, the body charged with negotiating treaties to protect flora and fauna, left Iran exempt from the ban.

The convention allows the four countries to continue caviar exports under quotas set by the international organization for 2001. They must agree between themselves on amounts of sturgeon fishing and caviar exports in 2002 if they are to avoid a total embargo.

Poaching and illegal trade in black caviar will now be tackled more vigorously. CITES officials say Caspian Sea poaching has reached the scale of organized crime and amounts to 13 times the legal catch, putting the sturgeon population on the brink of extinction.

Countries bordering the Caspian Sea were urged last Tuesday to take urgent action to save the sturgeon, whose numbers have been ravaged since the fall of the Soviet Union by the illegal trade in caviar.

According to CITES officials, official catch levels of sturgeon in the Caspian Sea have fallen from a peak of 30,000 tons in the late 1970s to less than a tenth of that figure today, as the old system of joint state control of the caviar market by the Soviet Union and Iran collapsed.

Pollution, reduced river flow and the destruction of spawning sites -- where the caviar, sturgeon's eggs, is produced -- have also contributed to the fall, they said.

"The illegal catch in the four former Soviet republics is now 10 or 12 times higher than the legal take," the organization said in a statement recently.

"The legal caviar trade is worth some 100 million dollars. Because prices of illegal caviar vary widely from country to country, it is difficult to estimate the value of illegal trade, but it is clearly enormous."

CITES officials were considering recommending a worldwide ban on imports of caviar because of the lack of action by the four former Soviet republics. Iran is not under censure because it has in place a functioning management system.

Under the proposed agreement, the so-called "range states" would conduct a comprehensive survey of existing resources, ask Interpol to intervene to analyze the illegal trade, and cooperate more effectively to combat poaching.

Prices of legally exported caviar have skyrocketed and are set to increase further if restrictions are put in place.