The Caspian Sea convention draft stipulates provisions expressly forbidding ships from non-Caspian states to navigate the Caspian Sea. Moreover, the convention notes that only littoral countries have the sovereign right to own the Caspian Sea's resources, Mr. Golovin said.
"We would like the convention to formalize the inadmissibility of deploying military units of non-Caspian states in the region," Golovin noted. "In our position, Iran, along with other littoral countries, has behaved in a restrained manner so far," Mr. Golovin added.
The tranquility of Russia's southern borders, the North Caucasian situation and the pace of intra-CIS processes largely depend on the Caspian-region situation, Mr. Golovin stressed. Russia would like to expand wide-ranging ties with littoral countries, while developing large hydrocarbon deposits and choosing convenient routes for their transportation, Mr. Golovin continued.
Efforts to facilitate regional stability and to forge stable, good-neighborly and friendly relations with regional countries match these goals, Mr. Golovin stressed.
