“The Caspian Sea is a unique natural complex with its own unique ecosystem that requires scientific research in the environmental sphere”, the President of Turkmenistan said at the International Conference “The Caspian Sea: in the interest of developing international economic cooperation”.

According to the President of Turkmenistan, putting forward the idea on holding the Caspian Economic Forum, Turkmenistan based on the possibilities of taking all these factors into account, creating conditions for joint work through the broad, ongoing platform for cooperation with the participation of states, international organizations, business structures, scientific centers.

“Today, this idea is close to its embodiment. A new, promising format of international partnerships is emerging, based on shared values and united by common goals and objectives”, the President emphasized.

The President of Turkmenistan underlined that various aspects of the Caspian agenda would be discussed during the forum. The very name of the Forum - “economic” implies a particular emphasis on the issues of economy, trade, investment, innovation and technology. Having expressed confidence that the Forum participants will have something to say to each other, exchange views and assessments, the President of Turkmenistan focused on the main thing, without which no project, no initiative could take place.

It is peace, security, friendship and mutual understanding between the littoral states and the peoples residing there. In this context, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov recalled that in order to ensure the peaceful and stable development of our region, to create new political and legal foundations for multilateral cooperation on the Caspian Sea the first Summit of the Caspian littoral states was held in Ashgabat in April 2002 at the initiative of Turkmenistan. The Summit laid the solid foundation for the systemic, multi-level and regular negotiation process on the Caspian Sea.

In the future, the littoral states, their government, showing exceptional foresight and political will, the commitment to understand and take into account the interests of each other, achieved significant results. A really long way has been traveled, the most important agreements in the political and diplomatic sphere have been reached, a broad, substantial legal basis for cooperation has been formed. The result of this work was the Convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea - a document that opens up enormous prospects for partnership that was signed by the Presidents of the five states in Aktau last year. Over the past years, a solid package of five-sided agreements on specific areas of activity in the Caspian Sea has also been signed.