Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 27
By Seba Aghayeva – Trend:
Issues regarding the draft convention on the Caspian Sea’s legal status have been mostly agreed upon, Azerbaijan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov told reporters in Baku Dec. 27.
He said that negotiations on the remaining issues continue.
“We expect them to be fully agreed upon until the next summit of heads of Caspian states in Astana,” Khalafov said.
He said a special group should work out these issues before the meeting of foreign ministers of the Caspian littoral states.
“We plan to summarize all the work in order to finally agree on a draft convention on the Caspian Sea’s legal status for the heads of state to sign it,” Khalafov said.
The Caspian littoral states – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan and Iran –signed a Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea in November 2003.
Russia and Kazakhstan signed an agreement on the delimitation of the northern part of the Caspian Sea in order to exercise sovereign rights for subsoil use in July 1998. The two countries signed a protocol to the agreement in May 2002.
Moreover, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan signed an agreement on the delimitation of the Caspian Sea and a protocol to it on Nov. 29, 2001, and Feb. 27, 2003, respectively.
Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia signed an agreement on the delimitation of adjacent sections of the Caspian Sea on May 14, 2003.
As of today, summits of heads of the Caspian states were held in 2002 in Ashgabat, in 2007 in Tehran, in 2010 in Baku and in 2014 in Astrakhan.