On June 1, 2017, the regular, 49th meeting of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea at the level of deputy ministers of foreign affairs of the Caspian states started in Ashgabat. The meeting of the Special Working Group was organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan and the State Enterprise for Caspian Sea Affairs under the President of Turkmenistan.
Delegations from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation arrived in the Turkmen capital to participate in this meeting.
During the first day of the meeting, the delegations exchanged views on key issues, as well as outlined their states' positions on certain provisions of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, designed to consolidate the legal norms of interaction in various fields in the Caspian.
As noted, today a number of key points of the Convention have been agreed between the countries of the Caspian region, which regulates the most important aspects of the activities of the littoral States based on respect for their sovereign rights, including in areas of their national jurisdiction. The draft document also includes modern principles and norms of international law in the field of navigation, environmental protection and rational nature management, in particular, the use of the biological resources of the Caspian and the mineral resources of its bottom and subsoil.
On June 2, the meeting of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the elaboration of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea will continue its work.
