Caspian Sea Countries Adopt Cooperation Agreement

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (L-R), Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, and Azerbaijan`s President Ilham Aliyev take a walk along the Volga River banks at the Fourth Ca

The five countries with a Caspian Sea coastline signed Monday their first document on cooperation in the region.

Presidents of Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan also agreed that no armed forces of third countries should sail into the sea, Russian agency ITAR-TASS reports.

The countries are now entitled to extract bio-resources up to 25 nautical miles (46.3 km) off their coasts.

Despite some expectations, however, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan failed to agree in the Russian city of Astrakhan on the project to construct a Trans-Caspian pipeline allowing direct supplies from Turkmenistan to Europe for the first time.

Caspian Sea countries have been at odds about the basin's status and their respective spheres of economic activity there for nearly two decades.

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