The United States, Washington, Aug. 1 / Trend , N.Bogdanova/
The American expert considers "the problem for the negotiations" between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan on the status of the Caspian Sea that official Ashgabat uses maps from the Soviet period that show certain blocks in the Caspian Sea as being allocated to Turkmenistan.
"If the president of Turkmenistan has maps from the Soviet period that show certain blocks in the Caspian Sea as being allocated to Turkmenistan, then it is a problem for negotiation," Senior Research Fellow in the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Carleton University of Canada, Robert Cutler told Trend correspondent in Washington.
The negotiations between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan on the status of the Caspian Sea should continue with a view towards compromise and cooperation, he said.
"The Soviet internal administrative boundary drawn for ministerial or industrial purposes does not, under international law, automatically become the demarcation line between sovereign Azerbaijan and sovereign Turkmenistan," the expert said.
The three bilateral agreements on "modified median line" (a standard method of seabed demarcation under international law) that Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia have reached over the last dozen years make this clear," Cutler added.
An international arbitrage is necessary to solve differences between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, above all, in the issue of delimitation of the border fields in the Caspian Sea, Turkmen President Gurbangulu Berdimuhammedov said at a governmental meeting in July. He said "Turkemnsitan will accept a decision of the arbitrage.
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