Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijan hopes to agree a slew of points on the status of the Caspian Sea, a senior official said as representatives of the littoral states gathered in Baku on Tuesday to discuss the issue that has been unresolved for over a decade.

Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov told a meeting of the joint taskforce that over two days it will continue working to agree upon a draft convention on the resource-rich basin’s status. The coastal nations - Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan Russia and Iran - will also discuss enforcement of the decisions passed by their presidents at the November 2010 summit in Baku.

Russian Foreign Ministry special envoy Alexander Golovin said Russia supports speeding work on the Caspian status convention. He reminded that the next summit of the littoral countries will be held in Moscow, and suggested that the taskforce hold its next meeting in the Russian capital as well.

Mohamed Mehdi Akhundzadeh, Iran’s special envoy for Caspian Sea affairs, said the littoral states’ presidents aim at drafting the convention by the end of 2011, voicing hope that the document will be ready by the Moscow summit, which is due late this year.

Azerbaijan, Russia and Kazakhstan signed an agreement in 2001 on dividing the Caspian’s northern area into national sectors, with Azerbaijan and Russia each possessing 19 percent, while the Central Asian state received 29 percent. However, the other two coastal nations, Iran and Turkmenistan, did not sign the agreement. Iran wants all resources shared equally among five states, even though its coast accounts for less than 14 percent.