MEETING OF MINISTERS OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE CASPIAN STATES WAS HELD IN MOSCOW

On December 4-5, 2017, the delegation of Turkmenistan headed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs R. Meredov paid a working visit to Moscow, where attended the Seventh Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Caspian littoral states.

During the meeting, the Foreign Ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan discussed issues of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, as well as documents regulating five-way cooperation in the Caspian in various fields, including economics, transport, anti-poaching, maritime safety and a number of others. The main task of the meeting was preparation for the upcoming 5th Caspian Summit in 2018 in Kazakhstan.

At the end of the meeting of foreign ministers of the Caspian littoral states, a press conference was held by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. He noted that special attention was paid to the work on the draft Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea and announced that solutions were found to all the remaining open issues related to the preparation of this document. S.Lavrov said that in the near future an editorial revision of the text, translation into national languages, and internal preparation of the Caspian countries for signing this convention at the highest level will be carried out.

Within the framework of the visit to the Russian Federation, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan R.Meredov had a meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation S.Lavrov. During the negotiations, the current state and prospects for the development of bilateral cooperation were discussed; concrete directions for further cooperation were identified. At the end of the meeting, the Foreign Ministers of the two countries signed a Cooperation program between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation for 2018.