Littoral states considers Caspian Sea's legal status in Ashgabat

By Azernews

By Kamila Aliyeva

Ashgabat hosts the 49th meeting of the Working Group for development of the Convention on the Caspian Sea’s legal status at the level of deputy foreign ministers, the Turkmen government reported.

At the meeting, the heads of the delegations of the Caspian states presented their countries' positions on certain provisions of the Convention.

A number of key points of the document - the basic international treaty regulating the most important aspects of the activities of littoral states, including in areas of their national jurisdiction - had been agreed upon.

"The draft document also includes modern principles and norms of international law in the field of navigation, environmental protection and rational use of natural resources, in particular, the use of biological resources of the Caspian Sea and the mineral resources of its bottom and subsoil," the message reads.

Earlier, such important documents as the Framework Convention for Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea and the Agreement on Security Cooperation in the Caspian Sea were signed.

The Caspian Sea is surrounded by the five coastal countries of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan. The Sea has a total surface area of 371,000 km², holding 78,200 cubic km of water.

The legal status of the Caspian Sea has 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 projects.

Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan hold to the principle of dividing into national sectors based on the “median line” principles since it is an international boundary lake, and leaving the sea surface for general use, i.e. they are for demarcation of mineral resources and the Caspian Sea shelf, but against dividing up its waters. 

Iran seeks an equal division of the Caspian into 5 even sectors, mainly because most of the offshore energy resources are located away from the Iranian coastline. Turkmenistan also demands the division of the Sea into equal parts between the pre-Caspian countries so that each country has 20 percent of the sea.

The Caspian littoral states signed a Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea in November 2003.