Iranian FM Due in Moscow Next Week
TEHRAN (Tasnim) — Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is scheduled to pay a visit to Moscow on Tuesday, April 22, an Iranian diplomat confirmed on Wednesday.
The foreign minister will arrive in Russia on Tuesday to participate in a meeting of foreign ministers of the countries that border the Caspian Sea, Iranian Ambassador to Moscow Mehdi Sanaei said in message posted on his Facebook page.
Since the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union, the nations that border the Caspian (Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan) have failed to agree on the sea’s legal status.
Meantime, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is also planned to make a trip to Russia in September for a meeting of the heads of the Caspian Sea countries.
The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed water body on earth by area, variously classed as the world’s largest lake or a full-fledged sea.
The Caspian Sea Convention will determine the territorial rights of littoral states- Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan - as well as other matters related to the world’s largest landlocked body of water.
The Caspian Sea legal regime is based on two agreements signed between Iran and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1921 and 1940. The three new littoral states, established after the collapse of the Soviet Union, have not recognized the prior treaties, triggering a debate on the future status of the sea.