Kazakhstan calls for pentalateral consensus on Caspian Sea legal status (PHOTOS)

As is known, Kazakhstan is going to host the V Caspian Summit next year. In this regard, the country plans to convene a conference of the Caspian States' foreign ministers to sum up preliminary results of elaboration of the Convention and to determine the level of readiness for the Summit.

According to Kazakh Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov, the initiative of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazzarbayev on development of the Convention and its signing at the next Summit in our country was backed by the heads of all Caspian states at the IV Caspian Summit in Astrakhan, Russia.

In his speech, Idrissov referred to Kazakhstan's position regarding the major elements of the Caspian Sea legal status.

Throughout the negotiation process, Kazakhstan has adhered to a compromise approach which takes into account all Caspian states' interests.

Kazakhstan offers to divide the Caspian Sea into territorial waters, a fishing zone and a common water zone. This approach is used by the heads of state while taking a decision on delimitation of the sea. As for demarcation of the sea bottom, Kazakhstan offers to divide it into zones within which each country will enjoy a sovereign right to explore and extract mineral resources on the Caspian shelf. As the Minister noted the delimitation of the Caspian Sea bottom must comply with the existing world practice and methodology and must be based on the agreement with adjacent and opposite states, while taking into account the generally recognized provisions of the international law. To date, Kazakhstan has signed agreements on division of the Caspian Sea border with Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. These documents provide for international-legal base for the development of oil and gas deposits in north-eastern part of the sea and create an attractive and stable investment climate. Thus, the delimitation of the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea bottom has almost finished. In its turn, Kazakhstan calls other states to positively perceive and use its experience in further talks on division of the Caspian shelf. The coordination of all disputed provisions of the Convention will enable to boost development of Caspian states' energy systems, to expand energy resources supply to the global markets, to implement the existing transit potential and to boost economic prosperity of the entire Caspian region. "The analysis of the current geopolitical situation in the Caspian region and in the world let us state the necessity of soonest completion of the negotiations and immediate coordination of the Caspian Sea legal regime. I am calling all the participants to express maximum aspiration for five-lateral consensus and search for mutually beneficial decisions, satisfying the interests of all five Caspian countries," the Minister stressed.