Caspian Energy (CE): What agreements are being prepared for signing at the 4th Caspian Summit in Astrakhan? What are Russia’s expectations from this summit?

Igor Bratchikov, Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation on delimitation and demarcation of the state border between the Russian Federation and neighbouring CIS countries: Every summit is considering the results of what has been already done and the opportunity to give an incentive to the development of relations. The Caspian Summit is no exception in this regard. The last summit of the heads of state of the Caspian Sea region was hosted in 2010, Baku. Since then a big job has been done to coordinate principles of a five-sided cooperation in the sea, which shall underlie a future convention on legal status of the Caspian Sea. In Astrakhan we are to examine and fix the results of this job, and also set up priorities of a five-sided cooperation for a period until the next summit.    

As far as the first part of your question is concerned, a number of intergovernmental agreements are ready, targeting promotion of the cooperation between the Caspian countries in certain areas, including preservation and rational use of bioresources of the sea, prevention and elimination of emergency situations in the Caspian Sea, hydrometeorology.