This group comprises representatives of the five littoral countries, i.e. Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan.
Plans are in place to continue the clause-by-clause discussion of the draft convention dealing with the Caspian Sea's legal status.
The group's work was positively assessed at a conference of Caspian countries' Foreign Ministers in Moscow this past April; the Ministers noted that the group had made substantial headway in coordinating the draft convention as regards the Caspian Sea's legal status, people at the Russian Foreign Ministry noted.
Former deputy Russian foreign minister Victor Kalyuzhny, who headed the Russian delegation at the group's 14-th session, made a statement, after that session wound up. Russia's position hinges on principled aspects, which have been clarified over the decades, in the context of Soviet-Iranian relations, as well as by the 1921 and 1940 treaties, which had stipulated specific principles of a joint concept for using the Caspian Sea; this concerns navigation, the biosphere and environmental protection, Kalyuzhny noted.
Russia believes that one should not discard previous achievements in this sphere, Kalyuzhny went on to say; this isn't some tough position; on the contrary, this position stipulates the historically correct continuation of relations between littoral states, Kalyuzhny added.
The 1921 and 1940 Soviet-Iranian treaties on demarcating the Caspian Sea still remain in force de facto; according to their provisions, regional countries still jointly own the local sea-bed and the water surface itself.
Littoral states have so far failed to coordinate their positions on numerous issues. Among other things, Kazakhstan believes that specific underwater cable-and-pipeline routes (along the Caspian bottom) should only be chosen in line with prior consent on the part of a country, which allocates part of its sector for such routes.
For its own part, Teheran would like to control 20 percent of the entire Caspian water surface. If successful, Iran would expand its territorial waters 80 km north of the so-called Astara-Gasankuli line, which had previously constituted the Soviet border. Consequently, Iran would come to control the Araz, Alov and Sharg oil deposits now being developed by an international consortium by agreement with the Government of Azerbaijan.
Turkmenistan also wants to control the Sharg oil deposit, with official Turkmen documents referring to it as the Altyn-Asyr deposit. Moreover, Ashkhabad is wrangling over the two Chirag and Azeri deposits now being developed by Azerbaijan; they are called Osman and Khazar by the Turkmen side. Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan have already negotiated this issue more than once, but to no avail. At the same time, Ashkhabad opposes Iran's Caspian-division proposals, fearing that it might lose part of its gas deposits.
Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan should come to terms on the Caspian Sea's legal status. Meanwhile Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan alone have managed to compromise at this stage, concluding agreements on the demarcation of adjacent Caspian sectors.
