Aktau, Kazakhstan: Fifth Caspian Summit has started here today which is attended by the foreign ministers of Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Azerbaijan.
This summit is very significant as the Convention of the legal status of the Caspian Sea will be signed during this Summit.
“The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan reached here last night for approving modalities for future work on the Caspian Sea and will sign the Convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea by the Caspian littoral states’”, said Foreign Ministry of Russia.
According to available details, the Summit will sum up the results of many years of negotiations to determine the legal status of the Caspian and it (Summit) will be preceded by a meeting of foreign ministers of the Caspian states.
It is pertinent to mention that Caspian Sea Convention has a long history behind this initiative. In November 2003, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran signed the Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea while an agreement was concluded between Kazakhstan and Russia in 1998 on delineation of the bottom of the northern part of the Caspian Sea in order to exercise sovereign rights to subsoil use and in May 2002, a protocol was signed between Kazakhstan and Russian while on November 29, 2001 and February 27, 2003, agreements were concluded between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan on delimitation of the Caspian Sea floor and a protocol to it, respectively. On May 14, 2003, an agreement was reached on the point of junction of the lines of delimitation of adjacent sections of the Caspian Sea bottom among Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia.
Aktau (meaning as “White Mountain” in Kazakh language) is located on the east bank of the Caspian Sea. The name of city was changed as “Shevchenko” (Russian: Шевченко) in 1964 but original name was readopted after independence of Kazakhstan from former Soviet Union.
