CASPIAN STATES WILL CONTINUE "DIVIDING" CASPIAN SEA








MOSCOW, MARCH 13, 2001. /From a RIA Novosti correspondent/. Special envoy of the President of Russia for the Caspian Sea and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Viktor Kalyuzhny has gone to the capital of Kazakhstan Astana where the second round of the bilateral talks on the problems of determination of the legal status of the Caspian Sea will be held on Tuesday.


	The definition of the principle underlying the methods by which the so-called "middle modified line" that will delimit the bottom of the Caspian Sea between Russia and Kazakhstan will be determined will dominate the meeting.


	The accord on drawing such a line is fixed in the agreement signed in 1998 by Presidents of the two countries Vladimir Putin and Nursultan Nazarbayev. As Kalyuzhny said on the eve of his departure to Astana, the drawing of this line is "already the second stage in deciding the question of determining the new status of the Caspian Sea".


	The stands of Moscow and Astana on the question of determining the new status of the Caspian Sea coincide, in effect, in all the positions. Both Russia and Kazakhstan have proposed dividing the seabed among all the Caspian states by the middle modified line, leaving the Caspian Sea's water area in common use.


	Azerbaijan which earlier came out for dividing both the bottom and the water area of the Sea by the middle modified line into national sectors joined the above-said stand after Vladimir Putin's recent visit to Baku.


	As to Iran, it is insisting either on leaving the Caspian Sea as a whole in common use, or on dividing it into national sectors on the basis of the "condominium principle" - 20 per cent goes to each littoral state. Ashkhabad actively supported this stand up-till recently. But at the latest, January meeting of the working groups on the Caspian Sea at the level of Deputy Ministers of Foreign Affairs, held in Teheran, Turkmenistan gave it to understand that, in principle, it is ready to join the stance of Moscow, Astana and Baku.


	Furthermore, at the Astana talks the sides will also consider the questions of the belonging of several disputable points on the northern shelf of the Caspian Sea. They will consider, in particular, the principle which will underlie the determination of the status of the three islands which both Russia and Kazakhstan lay claim to. The sides will also discuss the preparation for the summit of the heads of the Caspian states scheduled for April.