The project of declaration of the Caspian Sea countries, Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, concerning the legal status of the Caspian Sea will be considered in Tehran during the Caspian summit, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, said to journalists, RBK reported.
The signing of the declaration by five countries will be an important step in the final regulation of all issues concerning the status. Unregulated issues will be considered at the next summit.
"We believe the Presidents can define the further directions of our work through changing experience," the Minister said.
The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a fully fledged sea. It has a surface area of 371,000 square kilometres (143,244 sq mi) and a volume of 78,200 cubic kilometres (18,761 cu mi). It is an endorhoic body of water and lies between the southern areas of the Russian Federation and northern Iran. It has a maximum depth of about 1025 meters ( 3,363 ft). It is called a sea because when the Romans first arrived there, they tasted the water and found it to be salty. It has a salinity of approximately 1.2%, about a third of salinity of most seawater.
The first summit of the Caspian Sea countries was held in Ashgabat in April 2002.