Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 20 / Trend , I.Isabalayeva /
Iran's accusations that the four other Caspian countries hunt seals to get their skins contradicts the reality, the Chief Consultant to the Azerbaijani Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry's department for increase and protection of biodiversity in the river basins, Tariyel Mammadli, told Trend.
Deputy Head of Iran's Environment Protection Organization (IEPO) Marine Ecology Management Abdurreza Kerbasi the four other Caspian countries hunted seals for their skins. He said this is one of the main reasons for reducing the number of seals.
However, Mammadli stated that last time seals were hunted in the Azerbaijani sector in 1962, and Azerbaijan was first which banned the hunting of seals.
Turkmenistan also has banned hunting of seals, he said.
Although Russia and Kazakhstan hunted seals, they stopped it in recent years.
"I can exactly state that no one in the Caspian littoral countries engage in the hunting of seals in past five years. The Commission on Aquatic Bioresources of the Caspian Sea also does not set quota in this regard," he noted.
He said the real problem with the seals in the Caspian Sea was in 1950, and he does not know why Iran has now focuses attention on the 1950-ies.
"This is the problem of Iran. Maybe Iran faced with the archival literature of the 1950s, because now we lack such a problem," he said.