Caspian states make headway on security deal
BAKU – Deputy foreign ministers of the Caspian littoral states made significant progress Tuesday on a draft agreement on security cooperation in the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov told a press conference.
"We hope that we will manage to agree all the remaining issues on the draft agreement at just one more meeting of experts such as the one we had today," said Khalafov.
He said the meeting took place in an atmosphere of "mutual respect and trust".
"We are all determined to finalize the draft agreement in the near future," Khalafov said. According to him, concluding such an agreement will facilitate cooperation among the Caspian countries in providing security, combating terrorism and other issues.
Khalafov said this agreement would also expedite a solution to the legal status of the Caspian Sea.
According to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, the fact that the parties made headway on drafting the security cooperation agreement was largely a merit of the chairman of today's meeting Khalaf Khalafov and his charismatic team.
He said all parties are inclined to work hard and to reflect "supreme political will" of the Caspian states in the security deal.
"This document would surely increase security in the region," said Ryabkov.
Iranian President’s special representative for Caspian affairs, Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Mehdi Akhundzadeh said the sides had made progress in coordinating the issues envisioned by the agreement.
"Given the importance of those issues, I want to say that we have achieved significant improvements compared to the previous two meetings on this issue. Today, we obviously made great progress."
Akhundzadeh said Iran hopes that the coastal nations will be able to reach consent on the agreement until the summit of their leaders in November.
Concluding the press conference, Khalafov said there was a common will of all parties to resolve all outstanding issues.
"If the draft agreement is ready by mid-November, it can be put on the agenda of the Caspian states' summit, which will be held on November 18 in Baku," he said.
The status of the basin has been unresolved for nearly a decade. Azerbaijan, Russia and Kazakhstan signed an agreement in 2001 on the delineation of the Caspian’s northern area into national sectors, with Azerbaijan and Russia each possessing 19%, while the Central Asian state received 29%. However, Azerbaijan faces a long-standing dispute with Turkmenistan over the offshore Kapaz (Sardar) field. The issue also remains to be agreed with another coastal state – Iran, which supports equal division of the basin and claims rights to the Alov field in the Caspian.