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Working group to meet for coordination of draft convention on Caspian Sea’s legal status

Politics Materials 21 August 2017 15:13 (UTC +04:00)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Seba Aghayeva – Trend:

The 50th meeting of the Ad Hoc Working Group for the development of a Convention on the Caspian Sea’s legal status, at the level of deputy foreign ministers of the Caspian littoral states, will be held in late September-early October in Iran, a diplomatic source told Trend, Aug. 21.

The working group will meet to finalize the draft convention on the status of the Caspian Sea.

The upcoming meeting should create prerequisites for the determination of the Caspian Sea’s status at the level of the heads of state.

The working group’s meeting will be preceded by a meeting of experts from the Caspian littoral countries. The experts’ meeting is tentatively scheduled for September 10-11 of this year.

It should be noted that today, most of the key issues on the draft Convention have been agreed upon, and negotiations on the remaining issues are underway. The parties intend to present agreed proposals for the fifth summit of heads of state, to be held in Kazakhstan in 2017.

“We plan to sum up all the works for the final approval of the draft Convention in order to present it to be signed by the heads of state,” said previously Azerbaijan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov, who represents the country at the negotiations.

The latest meeting of the Ad Hoc Working Group for the development of a Convention on the Caspian Sea’s legal status was held at the level of deputy foreign ministers in Ashgabat on June 1-2.

During the meeting, delegations discussed the remaining provisions of the draft Convention that had not been agreed upon. As a result of the negotiations, a number of provisions of the draft Convention were agreed upon. The delegations positively assessed the outcome of the talks.

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.

The Caspian littoral states – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan and Iran – signed the Framework Convention for Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea in November of 2003.

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