Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday the Convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea will be signed this year.

With a high degree of certainty, I can announce that the convention will be signed at the 5th summit, which will take place in Kazakhstan this year, Lavrov told Russian media.

He said that the foreign ministers of the Caspian Sea littoral nations agreed on all articles stipulated in the convention at their meeting in Moscow in December 2017. 

Now, the Russian foreign minister said, the verification of the texts in the language of each participating country is being carried out.

Lavrov also stressed that there are no obstacles to sealing the convention.

Leaders of the five Caspian Sea littoral countries met for the first time in 2002 in Ashgabat. The second Caspian summit was held in Tehran in 2007, the third one in Baku in 2010, and the fourth summit in Astrakhan in 2014.