Caspian Sea Legal Regime Convention Signed
The leaders of five Caspian Sea littoral states signed the Caspian Sea Legal Regime Convention on Sunday, August 12, in the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan.
The convention makes no reference to the countries’ shares of the Caspian Sea, and the resolution of this dispute has been deferred to the future.
Among the important provisions of this convention is the determination of the legal status of the Caspian. According to this convention, the Caspian has a unique status of its own and is not subject to the laws governing seas and lakes.
According to Article 8 of this convention, “The delimitation of the seabed and subsoil of the Caspian Sea into sectors shall be carried out through agreement between states with adjacent and opposite coasts, taking into account the principles and criteria generally recognized by international law, with the aim of enabling those states to exercise their sovereign rights to exploit the resources of the seabed and subsoil and other legitimate economic activities related to the development of seabed and subsoil resources.”
The Caspian Sea Legal Regime Convention also prohibits the passage of ships of non-littoral states and military exercises with non-littoral states.
Iran has for years emphasized equal division of the Caspian Sea, but nonetheless Russia and other countries signed bilateral agreements for dividing the sea before the convention was signed.
If the Caspian Sea is divided, Iran’s share would be 20 percent, and according to the “median line” formula, Iran’s share would be approximately 13 percent.
Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran, who attended the meeting along with his counterparts Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan, Ilham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan, Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, cited on Sunday the prohibition of establishing and granting military bases to foreign countries, the passage of military vessels, and even the transit of military cargo from non-littoral countries as among the highlighted provisions of this convention.
Hassan Rouhani said: “In the Caspian Sea Legal Regime Convention, the seabed and subsoil boundaries have not yet been determined, and this will be done through subsequent agreement among the relevant parties.”
Tehran previously, citing the 1921 agreement (the Treaty of Friendship between Iran and Soviet Russia) and the 1940 agreement (the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation in the Caspian Sea), considered Iran’s share in this sea to be 50 percent; but subsequently appealed to “the principle of equity” and demanded a 20 percent share of the Caspian.
According to Hossein Arien, a military expert, in recent years Iranian officials have placed less emphasis on this position.
Toraji Atbaki, a university professor in the Netherlands, also told Radio Farda about the sensitivity of Caspian Sea division, stating that currently no group is willing to accept the consequences of the final division of the Caspian Sea in terms of public opinion pressure. He also said that in current circumstances, given the pressures facing Iran, Iran’s position has become weaker.
On the other hand, Bloomberg news agency wrote in an analysis that this agreement has deferred the exploitation of seabed resources to separate agreements among littoral states, which means consolidating the current situation, since countries such as Kazakhstan and Russia have signed bilateral agreements for joint exploitation. According to this publication, this agreement paves the way for extracting oil and gas resources from the Caspian.
Source: Radio Farda
