Convention on Caspian Sea status to be signed this year

“With a high degree of certainty, I can announce that the convention will be signed at the 5th summit, which will be held in Kazakhstan this year,” the FM said.

Lavrov noted that at the meeting in Moscow this December, the foreign ministers of the Caspian states – Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Azerbaijan – finished harmonizing all articles of the convention.

“Now the verification of the texts in the language of each participating country is carried out,” the minister added.

Lavrov also expressed confidence that the convention will be signed, noting that there are no obstacles to this.

Earlier, Azerbaijan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov said that the agreed draft convention implies a sectoral division of the Caspian seabed on the basis of bilateral agreements between the littoral states.

No principle of middle line or any other common principle is envisaged for the division of the Caspian seabed, adding that issues in this area between Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Iran should also be resolved on the basis of bilateral agreements. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia have already signed similar bilateral agreements.

The deputy minister also said the draft convention includes the principle of dividing the water surface of the Caspian Sea. The sovereignty of the states is included in the 15-mile zone. After this zone, the 10-mile fishing zone is defined.

The issue of determining the legal status of the Caspian Sea became relevant after the collapse of the USSR, when the emergence of new subjects of international law - Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan raised the issue of delimitation of the Caspian Sea between the five littoral countries.

The difficulties in determining the status of the Caspian Sea were linked, in particular, with the recognition of it as a lake or sea, the delineation of which is regulated by different provisions of international law.

The leaders of the five countries met for the first time in 2002 in Ashgabat. The second Caspian summit was held in Tehran in 2007, the third one in Baku in 2010, and the fourth summit – in Astrakhan in 2014.