The Turkmen parliament has ratified the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, the Turkmen government said in a message on Dec. 3.

In addition, draft resolutions "On Ratification of the Agreement on the Prevention of Incidents in the Caspian Sea", "On Ratification of the Agreement between the Governments of the Caspian States on Trade and Economic Cooperation" and "On Ratification of the Agreement between the Governments of the Caspian States on Cooperation in the Field of Transport" were adopted.

On Aug. 12, the heads of five Caspian states signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea at the 5th Summit of the Heads of Caspian States in Aktau. The Convention is a historic document for the region, the work on which has been carried out for two decades since 1996.

According to the document, it is possible to lay submarine cables and pipelines along the bottom of the Caspian Sea "provided that their designs comply with environmental requirements and standards enshrined in international treaties to which they are parties".

The signing of the Caspian Convention is a historic step towards global energy security. The relevant negotiations have been conducted since 2011 between the interested parties-the EU, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. In particular, the project of laying the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline to the shores of Azerbaijan, from where the Turkmen raw material can be delivered to Turkey and further to Europe, is being promoted.

The Trans-Caspian project can be implemented as part of the EU-lobbied Southern Gas Corridor project. The Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP project in which Turkey and Azerbaijan are involved) or the AGRI (Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania Interconnector) projects may be useful in this direction.

At the same time, Turkmenistan declared its readiness to supply Europe with up to 40 billion cubic meters of gas annually, of which 10 billion can be provided by the company Petronas (Malaysia), operating in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea. The rest of the volume can be provided through the East-West gas pipeline, which begins on the largest Turkmen field Galkynysh and ends in the shores of the Caspian Sea.