Today in Moscow the traditional international forum “Caspian Dialogue 2012” started. Annually it is held under support of the Energy Ministry of Russia, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology, the Chamber of Commerce and the Russian Academy of Science. The forum is organized by the council “Science and Innovations of the Caspian” and Engineering Consulting Center “Roskon.”
The aim of the Forum is using the uniting factor of the Caspian Sea for consolidation of efforts on extension of cooperation in the Caspian Sea region. It is expected that the focus will be made at extension of cooperation and partnership in exploration of the mineral raw material resources, in the sphere of construction and modernization of infrastructural facilities, industrial, oil-producing and refining capacities, innovative projects, environment of the Caspian Sea. The central event of the Forum will be the fifth energy forum “Energy of the Caspian – Energy of the World.”
A day before the opening of “Caspian Dialogue” the foreign minister of Kazakhstan Yerzhan Kazykhanov stated that in general all countries of the Caspian region supported the initiative by Nursultan Nazarbayev on establishment of territorial areas, fishing areas and sharing areas in the Caspian Sea.
The position of Kazakhstan on the legal status of the Caspian Sea is that certain articles on regimes and width of various parts of the sea of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 should be applied to the Caspian Sea.
In case of adoption of these principles the Caspian countries will define the legal status of the Caspian Sea in the near future, the foreign minister of Kazakhstan thinks.
The minister of industry and energy Natig Aliyev made several interesting statements on the fate of the Transcaspian gas pipeline. According to him, it will be a separate system and won’t be connected with any other gas pipelines. Technical research on the route of the pipeline continues. “Previous research was ineffective and unserious. We need a new research for eliciting more effective routes,” the minister said.
The European Investment Bank and some other European banks are ready to sponsor construction of the pipeline on the bottom of the Caspian Sea. Two agreements are being prepared – the political declaration of presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan and the EU, as well as the intergovernmental agreement between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan on construction of the Transcaspian gas pipeline.
Yeugeni Krishtalev, exclusively to VK
