MOSCOW, April 14 (RIA Novosti) - Countries involved
in the negotiations over the legal status of the Caspian Sea
are getting closer to reaching a mutual understanding, the
Russian foreign minister said on Tuesday.
Deputy foreign ministers of the Caspian littoral states
are currently holding a meeting in Astana, the capital of
Kazakhstan, to discuss the legal status of the energy-rich sea.
"I don't want to downgrade the importance of the issues
that have yet to be discussed, but my contacts with the foreign
ministers of the Caspian littoral states show that the
participants in the negotiation process are drawing closer to
mutual understanding, in particular on delimitation of the
whole Caspian water area and seabed division in the south,"
Sergei Lavrov said.
The status of the oil- and gas-rich inland sea has been a
source of long-running disagreements between the five littoral
states - Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan
- since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The countries have failed to agree on how to divide the
seabed. The Caspian's oil and gas reserves, believed to be the
world's third largest, have also been a source of rivalry
between Russia, Iran and the West.
The next meeting is expected to be held in the Turkmen
capital, Ashgabat, although no date has been set.
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