Page 9 - MEOG Week 19 2022

MEOG POLICY & SECURITY MEOG

Caspian littoral states meeting

to be held in Tehran later in May

IRAN THE next meeting of the high-level working
group on the Caspian Sea littoral states will be
held in Tehran, Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign
Minister Khalaf Khalafov said, Interfax Azerbai-
jan reported on May 10.
Caspian trade has increased considerably in
recent years with Iran’s free trade agreement with
Eurasian Economic Union countries (led by Rus-
sia). Earlier this week the first, so-called Ro-Ro
(roll on-roll off) ship arrived at an Iranian port to
connect with road and rail system in that coun-
try, while Iranian exports to Kazakhstan have
increased significantly in recent months.
“The next meeting of the High-Level Work-
ing Group on the Caspian Sea will be held in Teh-
ran in May,” Khalafov told reporters.
The Convention on the Legal Status of the
Caspian Sea was signed on August 12, 2018 at
the summit of the Caspian states (Kazakhstan,
Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan) in
Aktau. However, further discussions on extrac-
tion of hydrocarbons among border states is
ongoing.
According to the Convention, the bottom
and subsoil of the Caspian Sea will be delimited
according to the sectoral principle.
It has been determined that the delimitation
of the bottom and subsoil of the Caspian Sea is
carried out by agreement of neighbouring and
opposite states on the basis of international law
in order to exercise their sovereign rights to sub-
soil use and other economic activities related to
the development of seabed and subsoil resources.
The first meeting of the working group on
the implementation of the Caspian Convention
was held in Baku on February 19-20, 2019, the
second - in Nursultan - on April 16-17, 2019, the
third - in Moscow - on February 8-9, 2021.™

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