Azerbaijan, Baku, June 18 / Trend , S.Agayeva/
Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan will continue consultations on the convergence of views on the legal status of the Caspian Sea.
Bilateral negotiations on the level of deputy foreign ministers of both countries will be held in Ashgabat September 8-9, Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan Elkhan Huseynov told Trend .
Delegation headed by the Special Representative of the President of Azerbaijan on the status of the Caspian Sea Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Khalaf Khalafov will go to Turkmenistan to participate in the negotiations.
The main subject of discussion will be determination of the median line the bottom of the Caspian Sea which will be divided between the Caspian littoral states on national sectoral basis. Previous negotiations between the parties to determine the coordinates of the median line were held in Baku in 2008.
Baku and Ashgabat have already recorded a rapprochement of their positions, and now intend to continue efforts in this direction, Huseynov said.
The main discord between the parties is the Kapaz field, which the Turkmen side is committed and called" Sardar ". According to seismic data, the estimated reserves of oil and gas condensate on the field are 150 million barrels.
Russia and Kazakhstan have no claims to each other on division the bottom of the Caspian Sea. There are both bilateral and trilateral agreements on this issue between the two countries. The parties also agreed to determine the coordinates of the dividing line. The issue is not agreed with only two countries - Turkmenistan and Iran due to which despite many years of discussions the status of the Caspian Sea has not yet been determined.
Azerbaijan was the first country on the Caspian Sea that begun to delineate the world's largest lake and the definition of limits of its sovereignty. It was the first Republic of Azerbaijan that announced the availability of its sector of the Caspian Sea on September, 20, 1994, and signed international contract (contract of the century) with western companies on the model of PSA (production sharing agreement). This is also reflected in the Basic Law of Azerbaijan 1995.