ASTRAKHAN, September 15 /TASS/. Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Iran have reached no final agreement so far on demarcation of the southern part of the Caspian Sea for the purpose of using subsurface resources, Igor Bratchikov, the Russian president’s Special Representative for Delimitation and Demarcation of Russia’s state border with the adjacent CIS countries, told journalists in Astrakhan on Tuesday.
"Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Iran still differ over the [seabed division] issues in the southern part of the Caspian Sea. We understand that these problems should be resolved on agreement among Caspian Sea countries that are adjacent and opposite to each other. In this case, I mean countries located in the southern part of the Caspian Sea — I have just mentioned them — and their agreements," Bratchikov, who leads the Russian delegation at the multilateral talks on the Caspian Sea, said. He hopes that Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Iran will be able to reach agreements in the foreseeable future.
Bratchikov said that two sectors of the Caspian Sea bed had been marked.
"The Russian sector of the seabed has been marked under agreements between Kazakhstan, Russia and Azerbaijan signed in 1998-2003. Documents on final demarcation of the Kazakhstani part of the Caspian Sea bed were signed last year. Relevant documents have been signed with Turkmenistan. The northern part of the Caspian Sea bed has been divided under agreements among countries that are adjacent and opposite to each other," Bratchikov clarified.
He said it was necessary to delimit the Caspian Sea bed rather than the water surface for the purpose of exercising the sovereign rights to using subsurface resources. Terrestrial coordinates of the demarcation lines delimit the seabed’s sections in which the sides can exercise their sovereign rights of prospecting and extracting mineral resources.