Seventh Meeting of Special Working Group on Legal Status of Caspian Sea Held Yesterday in Teheran

The seventh meeting of the special working group for drawing up a convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea took place yesterday in Teheran. The working group is composed of the deputy foreign ministers of the states that border the Caspian Sea. According to the press service of the Russian Foreign Ministry, representatives of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan took part in the meeting.

During the meeting, the heads of the delegations spelt out the positions of their states on the question of the legal status of the Caspian Sea and formed a consensus on the importance of continuing the activity of the special working group. An agreement was reached to continue work on the convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea at the next meeting of the special working group, which will be held in Baku.

Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that the problem of the Caspian Sea's status needs to be resolved 'in stages, step by step', observing the interests of all five countries bordering the Caspian Sea. In his opinion, the Caspian has an important role for all of these states, and 'it would be a mistake to divide it into five seas'. The Russian side proposes dividing the floor of the Caspian Sea, leaving the waters belonging jointly to the bordering states.