Caspian sea closed for US military

A convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea will keep the sea free from any military facilities except of either Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, Iran or Azerbaijan, according to nur.kz citing Kazakhstan's KTK Channel.  

The accord was reached between foreign ministers of the five Caspian states at talks held in Moscow. 

Although the countries have been in dispute over delimitation of the sea bed for the last two decades, the diplomats came up with unanimous decision on alien military presence. 

There is hardly any other issue within the CIS area which was talked over so long at this high level. 

It is 18 years now the Caspian states have been seeking a compromise on who should own the sea, what laws should regulate it and who should be prevented from entering it under any pretext. 

The issue is critical due to the Caspian Sea being a storage of huge oil deposits, being rich with bioresources - the sturgeon initially, and a place of location for navies.  

In other words, it is a sweet spot not only for the nations sitting on its shores, but for the ones from the other side of the planet, KTK Channel reports. 

Given this, the approaches the Caspian nations demonstrating now differ from each other - one wants it divided equally, the other wants to divide it into sectors of various sizes, another one called it a lake and claims international maritime laws not applicable for the Caspian. 

In general, the issue is of global scale, but for Kazakhstan it is the only unsorted part of its state border.  

"As the legal status of the Caspian Sea has not been defined yet, we are working for signing a convention on the legal status of the Caspian that will provide and clarify all aspects including territorial issues, water zone issues, issues of economic activities, navigation, security, bioresources and environment," Kazakh FM Erlan Idrissov said. 

In the forthcoming autumn, presidents of Kazakhstan, Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkmenistan will meet in Astrakhan to see the compromises reached by their ministers and decide what may be signed and what can be postponed.  

Diplomats say the greater part of matters in dispute has been aligned and the convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea will soon be ready for signing. 

After it is signed Kazakhstan will close the last issue concerning its state border.