President Aliyev: Convention on Caspian opens up new prospects

The leaders of the five Caspian littoral states signed a landmark agreement on the legal status of world’s largest inland water body, the Caspian Sea, after more than 20 years of negotiations, thus opening up prospects for using energy-rich basin’s resources.

The long-awaited document represents a diplomatic success reached jointly by Azerbaijan, Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

The Convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea was signed by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov

at the 5th Summit of the Heads of State of the Caspian littoral states in the Kazakh port of Aktau on August 12.

Additional documents on cooperation in the field of combating terrorism, organized crime, and prevention of incidents in the Caspian Sea, as well as in trade, economy, transport, and border issues were signed.

Following the signing of agreements, the presidents made press statements. Ilham Aliyev, in his speech, noted that the signing of the Convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea is a historical document.

“Azerbaijan at all stages of the preparation of this document has worked constructively and contributed, as well as other Caspian countries, in order for this document to be signed,” he said.

Even before the signing of the Convention, the Caspian Sea was a sea of security, a sea of stability, and our relations, both bilateral and multilateral, were the guarantor of stability and security in the Caspian region, President Aliyev said, noting a high level of cooperation and trust between the Caspian countries.

“Today, security and stability in the Caspian are determined by the Convention, which we signed. Naturally, this opens up broad prospects for close cooperation between the Caspian countries, solving issues of an economic, transport nature, issues that will contribute to improving the living standards of our peoples. Azerbaijan makes an active and great contribution to improving the environmental situation in the Caspian. The measures that our government is taking are aimed at preventing pollution of the Caspian Sea, especially when carrying out oil and gas operations,” he said.

Ilham Aliyev underlined that all the oil and gas operations carried out by Azerbaijan in the period of independence correspond to the ISO's international standards.

“Next year we will celebrate the 70th anniversary of oil production in the Caspian Sea, which was the first oil production in offshore fields. Of course, over the years of exploitation of the Caspian's oil and gas resources, to a certain extent, the Caspian ecology has suffered. But today our country is doing its best to make the Caspian a zone of ecological development and ecological stability,” he added.

According to the head of state, Azerbaijan actively invests in transport infrastructure, and “the projects we have implemented allow us today to view the Caspian as an important transport artery.”

“The East-West corridor, within which Azerbaijan presents its transit services to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, the North-South corridor, through which transit between Iran and Russia is carried out via Azerbaijan, are projects that strengthen economic cooperation, create new jobs, make our countries even closer to each other and contribute to the strengthening of stability and security,” he said.

Ilham Aliyev pointed out that cargo transportation between Iran and Russia along the North-South corridor this has grown more than 100 times this year.

“On the territory of Azerbaijan, all work in this direction has been completed, and we expect an increase in freight traffic. Also, Azerbaijan implemented a project that unites the railways of Europe and Asia, and along this corridor we also expect a huge increase in freight traffic. All these are additional opportunities for our countries. This is an economic prosperity, this is the transformation of our countries into an important transit junction of a global scale,” he said.

The Azerbaijani head of state emphasized that today's signing ceremony opens new prospects for us.

“We are focused on continuing cooperation. Azerbaijan has very close, trusting relations, based on the consideration of mutual interests, equality, respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all countries with all the Caspian states,” he concluded.

President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev also hailed the importance of the Convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea and other documents, which were signed at the Summit. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov noted that the Convention will make an even more important contribution to the further cooperation between our countries.

How the Caspian Sea will be divided?

As a result of the summit, the Caspian Sea was granted a special, unique status and all littoral states will have 15 miles of sovereign waters, in addition to a further 10 nautical miles of fishing area, beyond which there would be common waters. In the territory of those 15 miles, the coastal state has full jurisdiction, and the line of these waters is recognized as a state border. There is also a ten-mile buffer beyond this boundary - the fishing area. In the fishing zone, the state can, for example, conduct "justified" inspection of ships.

The convention describes in detail the use of water spaces, including commercial navigation, fishing, scientific research, commercial airline flights over the Caspian Sea.

A part about the military presence in the Caspian Sea - primarily conditions on which warships can enter foreign territorial waters - was seriously worked out in the document. There is also one critical decision in it - the convention explicitly barred any armed presence on the Caspian Sea other than that of the littoral states.

However, one issue is yet to be resolved - the delineation of the seabed, which is almost completely an oil and gas basin.

The legal status of the Caspian Sea has remained unsolved during more than two decades, preventing development and exploitation of its disputable oil and gas fields and creating obstacles to the realization of major projects.

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 sea between the five littoral countries.

For a long time, the principle of delimitation of the sea’s water area was the apple of discord among the littoral states.

The Caspian states were mulling two possible options to determine the legal status of the Caspian Sea: delimitation using a mid-line modified method or division into 5 equal parts given each nation a 20 percent share. If the Caspian is legally declared a sea, all five littoral countries would map out their territorial waters and exploit the resources as they see fit.

The status of the sea has long been a key topic of discussions at the Caspian states’ summits. 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.