Azernews.Az

ASTANA – The Caspian littoral states’ constructive approach to the legal status of the resource-rich basin raises hope that the issue will be resolved in the near future, a senior Kazakh official has said.

Deputy Foreign Minister Kairat Sarybay told the "Caspian shelf development" conference in Astana that the coastal nations’ resolve to come to an agreement and recent contacts between their governments enable a conclusion that the Caspian status issue will find its solution soon.

"We can say with optimism that the Caspian states’ approach, the constructivism being displayed and the desire to strike a common ground as well as the intensifying integration processes in the region are providing a conducive ground for this."

Sarybay also said the convention on the Caspian status should be "a basic agreement regulating cooperation among the Caspian littoral states."

The next summit of the coastal nations is due in Moscow late this year. During the meeting of the joint taskforce held in Baku in late April, the littoral states drew closer to an agreement on the Caspian status, but a slew of issues remain to be ironed out. Russian officials then expressed hope that key agreements would be signed at the summit in the Russian capital.

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.