Azerbaijan, Baku /corr. Trend A.Gasimova, D.Khatinoglu / The third summit of the Caspian littoral countries will take place in Baku next year.
Baku will be the meeting place of five Caspian countries next year, said the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, making a speech at the summit of Caspian countries in Tehran. According to the President, meetings on the Caspian Sea status at the level of Foreign Ministers will take place every six months and a meeting at the level of Presidents will take place once a year.
A summit of five Caspian littoral countries, including Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan, began in Tehran on 16 October. The key topic of the summit is to determine the legal status of the Caspian Sea.
The declaration was signed by the Presidents of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan. The declaration is the first official document signed by the Caspian littoral countries with regards to the legal status of the Caspian Sea.
The first summit of the Caspian littoral countries was held in Ashgabat in April 2002. The gathering adopted the decision to conduct the second summit in Tehran in 2003. However, the event has been repeatedly postponed every year.
Caspian natural resources include over 500 types of plants and 854 types of fish (including 90% of the world sturgeon reserves). Oil reserves in correlation to the world's are not so huge (2%), but enough to cover the energy security of the region. After the collapse of the USSR the number of Caspian littoral countries increased from two to five and the adoption of a new agreement on the legal status of the Caspian was needed with the participation of all littoral countries.