Turkmenistan is to pursue Azerbaijan in the international courts over three disputed oil and gas deposits in the Caspian Sea, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said Friday, according to state television.
"I have ordered the foreign minister, Rashid Meredov, to engage leading international experts to study the legality of Azerbaijan's claims to the disputed deposits...and then submit the documents for examination by the International Court of Arbitration," Berdymukhamedov said.
"In spite of all the efforts by the Turkmen side, a consensus on the ownership of the deposits located in the central Caspian on territory disputed by Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan has still not been reached," he said.
Berdymukhamedov accused Azerbaijan of having unilaterally begun exploration at two of the three sites which, he said, were located "on Turkmen territory and belong to Turkmenistan."
Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan sit on opposite sides of the resource-rich Caspian and both claim a number of oil and gas fields beneath the sea.
The five countries that border the sea - Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan and Iran - have been unable to agree on how to divide up the Caspian since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.