Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 6
By Elmira Tariverdiyeva – Trend:
Three of the five Caspian states have a common position on the status of the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said.
He made the remarks Mar. 6 in Moscow at a press conference following the talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.
“There are good preconditions for moving forward in this issue,” said Mammadyarov.
Russian FM Sergey Lavrov, in turn, said he and Mammadyarov widely discussed the Caspian Sea’s status.
“We hope it will be possible to complete the work regarding the convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea at the forthcoming meeting of the Caspian states’ foreign ministers and to prepare a number of other documents for presidents, who plan to hold the next Caspian Summit in Kazakhstan,” added Lavrov.
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.
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.
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.