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Foreign ministers of Caspian littoral countries to discuss preparations for summit

The meeting will take place in Moscow

Russia, April 22, /ITAR-TASS/. Foreign ministers of five Caspian littoral countries - Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan meet in Moscow Tuesday to discuss preparations for the Caspian summit, due to be held in the autumn of 2014 in the southern Russian city of Astrakhan.

The Ministers Sergei Lavrov, Elmar Mamadyarov, Javad Zarif, Yerlan Idrisov, and Rashid Meredov will discuss the program and agenda of the summit and its draft final documents.

“They will analyze the work done by the experts of the five littoral countries in what concerns fulfilling decision of the previous Caspian summit (held in Baku in 2010) to design a new legal status of the Caspian sea that would match the new reality, as well as decisions in the areas like security and counteraction to common challenges, nature conservation, maintenance and rational utilization of aquatic biological resources, prevention and elimination of emergency situations, and a number of others,” a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Moscow believes that regular conferences of foreign ministers of the Caspian littoral nations offer an efficient mechanism of collaboration in the region.

“This format relies on a high level of trust and mutual understanding among the constituent parties on the key items of the Caspian agenda and it enables them to tap commonly acceptable solutions to the most complicated issues on the basis of consensus and in the atmosphere of friendship and good-neighborliness,” the spokesman said.

“Commitment of all the five countries to the principle of maintaining the Caspian Sea as a water area of peace and security as well as to the buildup of the potential of mutual beneficial cooperation in a variety of spheres has laid reliable groundwork for such contacts,” he said.

“Moscow is firmly committed to all the existing agreements related to the Caspian Sea and it speaks in favor of a further intensification of dialogue among the littoral states,” the spokesman said.

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