Transcript of Remarks by Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov at the Opening of the 25th Meeting of the Special Working Group for Defining the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, Moscow, April 14, 2009
594-14-04-2009
Esteemed Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,
First of all I would like to greet in Moscow the delegations of the Azerbaijani Republic, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Republic of Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan at the opening of this meeting of the Special Working Group for Defining the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea.
More than three years have passed since the previous meeting held in the Russian capital in March 2006. That time wasn’t wasted and was characterized by a highly intensive negotiation process: five rounds of talks on the Caspian status, a conference of foreign ministers from the five Caspian states and, most importantly, the Second Caspian Summit in Teheran.
All the meetings I’ve mentioned are not mere statistics of interstate contacts regarding the Caspian. All of them helped advance towards new international legal arrangements for the Caspian Basin and towards a new quality in relations and cooperation among the Caspian states.
A special position among the achieved results undoubtedly belongs to the Declaration that was adopted by the presidents of our countries in Teheran on October 16, 2007. It has particular significance for peace and good-neighborliness and for deeper economic cooperation in the Caspian Region. The Declaration was a sort of a code of political rules of conduct which we will adhere to until the elaboration and entry into force of a Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian.
The framework for collaboration among the five Caspian states was substantially broadened at the summit in Teheran. It had an economic component incorporated with an eye to eventually creating an Economic Cooperation Organization in the region, along with a set of security issues providing for a collective mechanism to fight the new challenges and threats.
It is gratifying that practical steps have already been taken in carrying out the Teheran accords. In October 2008 Astrakhan hosted an intergovernmental economic conference of the Caspian states at the level of deputy prime ministers with the participation of ministers responsible for the related fields of activity. It proved so useful that the leadership of the Astrakhan Region asked me to convey to the representatives of the Caspian states gathered here its willingness to host a second such forum.
The conference in Astrakhan demonstrated the weighty potential for economic and trade cooperation in the Caspian region. This potential has obviously developed beyond the bilateral framework, so the task to consider creating a Caspian Economic Cooperation Organization that was set at the Teheran summit is quite relevant, I think. That organization would help to step up regional economic ties, to structure them better and to develop optimal formats of collaboration. I think that in preparing the next Caspian summit, which by common agreement is due to be held in Baku, we could prepare concrete proposals on the question of establishing that organization, particularly since there is the appropriate instruction from the heads of state.
We have received with satisfaction the proposal of the Azerbaijani colleagues that a meeting of experts on security issues should be held in Baku during the last 10 days of April. We will certainly take part in it together with all our partners and will endeavor to make our contribution to practical work on creating a collective mechanism to fight contemporary threats and challenges in the Caspian region. The holding of that meeting will signify the fulfillment of a second instruction of the heads of state that was given to us in Teheran. We hope that this will also constitute an important, substantial filling of the upcoming Third Summit in Baku.
Now a couple of words about the work on the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian; I do not want to belittle the fact that there still remain questions that need to be agreed on, but from contacts with my colleagues – ministers of foreign affairs of Caspian states – I have gathered the impression that the participants of the negotiation process are coming closer to mutual understanding on the issues that are still open, primarily those concerning delimitation of the water area across the Caspian and the demarcation of the seabed in its southern part. I am certain that your meeting will help continue efforts toward this end so as to arrive at a fully agreed text of a draft convention in the foreseeable short-term future. I am certain that the well-being and prosperity of the peoples who live on the shores of the Caspian and use its resources depend largely on the success of your work, as does our common ability by collective methods of the Caspian countries to tackle all questions on the basis of mutual respect and the consideration of the interests objectively uniting us.
