Azernews.Az

MOSCOW – A senior Russian official has said there is "everything necessary" to finally resolve the issue of the Caspian Sea delimitation, which has been unresolved among the five littoral states for over a decade.

"Two years have passed since the last meeting in Moscow. The past period has been characterized by a highly efficient negotiating process," Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said Tuesday opening a session of the working group on the Caspian legal status convention, Russia’s state news agency Itar-Tass reported.

"Multilateral contacts have been developed ever since. They were crowned by a summit in Baku [in late 2010]. Russia highly assesses its results," Karasin said.

He said the agreement that was signed in Baku reiterates that security in the Caspian Sea is to be ensured only by the littoral states, the deputy minister said, adding that there are "real prospects" to solve the issues relating to the delimitation of the resource-rich basin.

"Russia thinks it is vital not to let freedoms be limited in the Caspian. It hopes the Baku summit decisions will be fully implemented," Karasin added.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently said that the dates and agenda of the next summit of the Caspian states due in Moscow will be determined during the two-day taskforce meeting.

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, 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.