Russia, Astrakhan / corr Trend R.Agayev / Next meeting of a special working group on the Caspian legal status definition will be held in Astana at the end of the year, Khalaf Khalafov, the Azerbaijani deputy foreign minister, told Trend .
Representatives of all five Caspian littoral countries will participate in the forthcoming meeting which is intended to continue work the Convention, he said.
їAt the same time, we will continue talks with Turkmenistan and Iran on delineation of the Caspian sea between our countries,ї Khalafov said.
Before the USSR collapsed, the Caspian Seaїs legal status was based on Soviet-Iranian agreements of 1921 and 1940. Currently, lack of the parameters of delimitation of the oil and gas prospective fields amongst the littoral countries has resulted in the necessity for a new legal status of the Caspian Sea based upon an agreement by all five littoral countries ( Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Iran).
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