Azernews.Az

By Nazrin Gadimova

The littoral states have managed to make progress in coordinating certain provisions of the draft convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea.

The Baku meeting of the special working group on the legal status of the basin adopted a statement on September 12.

"The sides agreed to exchange views on the methodology for determining baselines at the next meeting," Azerbaijan's Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov said at the end of the discussions.

According to Khalafov, a meeting of the Caspian states' foreign ministers will be held in the first half of 2014, and agreement to that end was reached during the Baku meeting.

Khalafov said the determination of the Caspian Sea status is an issue which refers to all the littoral states.

"Therefore, it is necessary to arrive at a consensus on this issue, to take the national interests of these countries into account and to strike a common ground," Khalafov said.

He earlier urged the coastal nations to continue the ratification of the agreement on cooperation in security, which was adopted at the Baku summit held in November 2010.

According to Khalafov, there are still a number of open questions in determining the status of the resource-rich basin, in particular, the division of the sea, as well as environmental issues.

The 33rd meeting of the Special Working Group on the Caspian legal status was held in the Azerbaijani capital on September 11-12 at the level of deputy foreign ministers. The meeting continued discussions over the draft convention on the legal status of the basin.

Deputy Minister Khalafov, Russian President's special representative on the delimitation and demarcation of borders with CIS states, Igor Bratchikov, Kazakhstan's Deputy Foreign Minister Kairat Sarybai, Iran's Mohammad Mehdi Akhoundzadeh and Turkmenistan's Murad Atadjanov attended the event.

Earlier, Khalafov said that the next summit of the Caspian countries will be held in Russia, while the date of the event is yet to be scheduled. "Russia thinks that it is necessary to do some serious work to reach certain agreements, and only then to schedule the summit," he said.

The five Caspian states signed the Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea in November 2003. In July 1998, Russia and Kazakhstan signed an agreement on the delimitation of the northern part of the Caspian Sea. On November 29, 2001 and February 27, 2003, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan signed an agreement on the delimitation of the Caspian Sea.

Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia signed an agreement on the delimitation of adjacent sections of the Caspian Sea on May 14, 2003.