ASTRAKHAN, September 29. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday he was hopeful that the five Caspian littoral states (Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan) will adopt a convention on the Caspian Sea legal status at the next summit.

“The work on preparing the convention on the Caspian Sea legal status is to be completed. I’m confident that we’ll be able to agree on the provisions that have not been coordinated yet and adopt the convention at the next summit,” Putin said at the Caspian summit.

The next Caspian Five meeting will be held in Kazakhstan.

Putin said within the narrow-format meeting the summiteers have coordinated a political statement on key principles of pentalateral cooperation in the Caspian region.

These agreements meet the long-term interests of five countries, he added.

Earlier, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said,  that the statement of the presidents, which will be adopted, stipulates principles of interaction between the Caspian Sea littoral states.

Ushakov said that the issue of the Caspian Sea status and its delimitation would be in the focus of the statement.

“Coordinated provisions on the maritime delimitation have been reflected in the [draft] statement of the presidents as a result of experts’ work,” Ushakov said. “There will be two types of zones registered - the zone of the state sovereignty and the zone with exclusive fisheries rights, and they will both make up a total of 25 nautical miles.”

An issue concerning the division of the 25 nautical miles area in the two mentioned-above zones “has not been yet agreed upon,” Ushakov added.

The parties will continue discussions on the construction of trans-Caspian pipelines because no consensus has been reached yet.