AKTAU /Kazakhstan/, August 12. /TASS/. The regular mechanism of consultations between the five Caspian littoral states (Russia, Kazakhstan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan) will hold its first meeting within the next six months, according to the communique of the 5th Caspian summit that was held in Kazakhstan’s Aktau on Sunday.

"To ensure efficient implementation of the convention of the legal status of the Caspian Sea and review various aspects of cooperation on the Caspian Sea, the presidents passed a decision to set up a mechanism of five-lateral regular consultations under the auspices of foreign ministries and at a level of deputy foreign ministers or plenipotentiary envoys of the Caspian states and to organize the first such consultations within six months after the signing of the convention," the document says.

The fifrth Caspian summit in Aktau yielded a convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea that was signed by the presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan, Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. The sides has been working on the convention since 1996. The draft was agreed by the five nations’ top diplomats at a meeting in Moscow on December 4-5, 2017.