Next Caspian Summit to discuss many documents - Russian deputy foreign minister

MOSCOW, May 22. /TASS/. Another Caspian Summit, due in Kazakhstan, will discuss many documents to add to the legal base, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said in an interview with the Volga daily on Friday. He participated in a meeting of Russian ambassadors to the Caspian Area countries, the Russian Foreign Ministry and officials of the Astrakhan region on Friday. He said the meeting demonstrated the "layer of mutually beneficial projects in the Caspian Sea is getting more dense every day." "Bilateral relations, including rather intensive and fruitful contacts between regions, are developing actively," he said. "We are aware of implemented five-party tasks," the deputy foreign minister said. "The countries are paying close attention to security in the region. Maintaining peace and stability there is a key competence of the countries." Russia has initiated "a five-party agreement on preventing incidents in the Caspian Sea, related to military ship." "Besides, on the negotiations table are draft agreements on cooperation between border guards, anti-drug authorities, and some others," he said. "The member countries are working on a plan for practical implementation of the agreement on overcoming emergency situations in the sea, which was signed in the presence of the presidents in Astrakhan." "The countries will also build up capital in the trade and economic sphere and in the sphere of transport," the diplomat said. "We continue the active implementation of all the agreements on maintaining the biological resources of the sea and its environment, on cooperation between meteorology services." "Our position is that by the next summit in Kazakhstan we may draft a big packet of documents to add to the growing legal base of the Caspian Five’s mechanism." The Caspian Sea is a unique water area in terms of its bio and ecological resource, which includes more than 500 kinds of sea plants and 854 kinds of fish species, including the Caspian sturgeon, which accounts for 90% of the world stock of sturgeon fish. A predicted amount of Caspian hydrocarbon resources has been estimated at around 18 billion tons, with the proved reserves put at four billion tons, which brings the Caspian Sea to second position after the Persian Gulf in the rating of the world biggest oil and gas reserves. The first Caspian summit was held in Ashgabat in 2002; the second one five years later in Tehran, and a third one in Baku in November 2010, the fourth - in Astrakhan in 2014, and then the baton of Caspian summits will go to Kazakhstan in 2016. Read more