FM: Strengthening of stability in Caspian Sea should rest upon consideration of interests of all parties

By Azernews

By Gunay Hasanova

The Caspian Sea is the biggest enclosed body of water on Earth, with enormous deposits of oil and gas as well as rich fisheries. It plays an important role in the transport corridors, along with being an important part of the international and regional projects. 

While, the question Is the Caspian Sea a Lake or a Sea is the subject of discussions of not only researchers, but also politicians, still there is no consensus among the littoral states over the status of the Caspian Sea.

The Caspian Sea is washing shores of the five countries: Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia.

Baku is sure that all issues of the Caspian Sea legal status must be resolved in a spirit of respect for littoral states’ sovereign rights and mutually beneficial partnership.

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov announced about this in his article published by the official press.

He also pointed to the importance of strengthening the trust between the parties, in particular, on issues related to regional stability, security and economic and scientific-research activities in the Caspian basin in settling the sea’s legal status issues.

The minister believes that confidence-building measures must also include the provision of equal security conditions for all Caspian states.

“We are also convinced that strengthening of stability in the Caspian Sea should rest upon consideration of interests of all parties, not inflicting damage to each other’s security, sovereignty and territorial integrity. Independence of the Caspian states should be respected and non-interference in the internal affairs of each other must be ensured,” he said.

Azerbaijan shared a common vision of the Caspian countries on the current state of Caspian Sea environment, and is interested in expanding cooperation for addressing environmental problems of the sea.

A great work has been carried out to coordinate the provisions of the draft convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea, the minister further added.

He said the adopted political decisions and agreements reached during the summits of the Caspian states’ heads make future negotiations on the draft convention more efficient.

The Caspian Sea is a significant part of many international and regional projects aimed at economic development and well-being of people in the countries of the Caspian region, as well as ensuring global energy security, according to him.

Priorities of the Caspian states include the issues related to strengthening of international cooperation, improving the investment situation in extraction and production of energy resources and supplying them to international markets, establishing dependable and secure relations, attraction of environmentally friendly and profitable technologies, stated the minister.

During the Soviet Union, the Caspian Sea was practically an inland body of water within the boundaries of the USSR, and only on the south, it washed the coast of Iran.

A key problem to further development in the region is the unresolved status of the Caspian Sea and the water boundaries among the five littoral states.

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

Negotiations related to the demarcation of the Caspian Sea have been going on for nearly a decade now among the littoral states bordering the Caspian. The major issues cover the access to the mineral resources (oil and gas), access for fishing, access to international waters.

Azerbaijan proposes that the Caspian Sea must be divided into national sectors based on the “median line” principles since it is an international boundary lake.

In turn, Iran and Turkmenistan oppose Azerbaijan’s position considering that the Caspian Sea must be divided into equal parts between the pre-Caspian countries so that each country must have 20% of the sea.