Moscow hosts roundtable for summit of Caspian states

Moscow is hosting a roundtable discussion related to the forum of the
heads of Caspian states, due to be held on November 18 in Baku.

The roundtable discussion was organized by the Institute of Caspian
Cooperation, headed by Sergey Mikheyev. Experts of all the Caspian
countries will be at the meeting.

Mikheyev noted that regional integration is a global trend. Caspian
issues should only be solved within the Caspian states. The
Organization for Caspian Economic Cooperation (OCEC) may become a
platform for integration processes, he said.

The politologist also said that construction of a channel between the
Black and the Caspian seas is an important project, supported by
Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.

The Editor-in-Chief of Vestnik Kavkaza, Alexei Vlasov, agreed with the
necessity of solving Caspian issues and urged the five countries to be
open in all issues.

Vlasov also emphasized that the interference of external players has
never led to positive results, on the contrary it has led to an
imbalance of forces in the region.

The deputy head of the Iranian mission in Russia, Shodzhai Mohammed
Hasan, said that Iran supports the commitment to solve the Caspian
issues within the five countries. He also supports the idea of
establishing the OCEC, emphasizing that Iran was the first to speak
about such an initiative.

The Iranian diplomat added that Iran praises the prospects for the
Baku summit and expresses hope that the security agreement being
prepared by experts of the Caspian states will be signed.