Caspian Convention Opens Great Prospects For Energy Sector Cooperation - Russian Minister

The signing of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea opens up great prospects for cooperation in the fuel and energy sector, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Wednesday.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th August, 2018) The signing of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea opens up great prospects for cooperation in the fuel and energy sector, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Wednesday.

On Sunday, the leaders of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan signed a convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea, a historic document that has been 22 years in the making. According to the document, the main area of the water surface of the Caspian remains in the common use of the parties, and the seabed and subsoil are divided by neighboring states into plots by agreement between them on the basis of international law. Shipping, fishing, scientific research and laying of pipelines are to be carried out according to the rules agreed upon by the parties.

"If we consider the convention through the prism of energy cooperation between the Caspian states, it can be noted that it opens great prospects for expanding and deepening mutually beneficial cooperation in the fuel and energy sector," Novak said in a publication on the Energy Ministry website.

The Convention stipulates that projects must comply with environmental requirements and standards enshrined in international treaties, the minister explained.

"The Convention is the basic document for the coordination of issues that have not yet been resolved, in particular, the delineation of the seabed and the depths of the Caspian Sea into sectors, which should be carried out by agreement between neighboring states and those on the opposite coasts," Novak stressed.

Earlier in the day, Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov said that the first meeting of a working group on implementation of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea would be held in Azerbaijan in November.

The status of the oil-and-gas-rich Caspian Sea was regulated by agreements reached between Iran and the Soviet Union until the dissolution of the latter, followed by the emergence of new independent states surrounding the body of water, namely Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan.