Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the first Caspian Economic Forum, to be held in Turkmenistan’s Avaza tourist zone on August 12, will give an additional impetus to the cooperation in such spheres as trade, investments and tourism, which will also help turn the Caspian Sea into one of the world's biggest transport and transit hubs.
Russia attaches great importance to this event, the level of the Russian delegation, headed by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, testifies to this, Lavrov stressed.
In his interview with the Foreign Policy and Diplomacy of Turkmenistan magazine, Lavrov said that solving of the problem of economic development of the Caspian region on a rational and mutually beneficial basis is of particular relevance after the signing of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea in August 2018.
The document meets the interests of all Caspian countries not only because its provisions clearly define their "mutual rights and obligations to use the Caspian Sea, the measures to strengthen confidence and security in this region of the world as a whole," the Russian top diplomat pointed out. The value of this international agreement is that it creates "the necessary legal conditions for accelerating the cooperation in the trade, investment and transport sectors," he stressed.
The Russian foreign minister also also drew attention to the fact that in the current circumstances there is need of creating a specialized platform for direct contacts between the governments, ministries of economy and business structures interested in working in the Caspian Sea.
"The idea of regularly holding the Caspian Economic Forum, put forward by Turkmenistan, turned out to be very timely," TASS cited Lavrov as saying.
